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When we started up Nova Scotia Parents for Teachers two weeks ago, our Facebook page quickly gathered around 400 members. Since our first bit of media coverage last Wednesday, membership has soared to over 5,000 and counting. We hope that premier McNeil is taking notice.
As a group of concerned parents and grandparents of students in public school, we have become frustrated with the government’s simple and one-tone approach to dealing with the school system’s many complex challenges: Blame teachers. Every day we leave our children in their care. They are highly trained, confront new challenges all of the time and are entrusted with one of the most important tasks in our society. And yet, premier McNeil wants to attack their dignity and autonomy, while spending lavishly on advertising campaigns and dishing out generous pay raises to his own high-ranking bureaucrats.
No wonder over 9,000 teachers are frustrated and angry. We believe the reasons for this are clear, and that many parents understand and sympathize.
First, the government’s treatment of teachers does not in any way open the door to a better education system. Teachers are burdened with ever-larger class sizes, a variety of diverse needs in the classroom with little real support and mounds of red tape and “accountability” measures that drain away their teaching time. We’d rather our teachers have the space to be creative, and the effective support they need, based on genuine consultation and cooperation to provide the quality education that they have spent so long training to provide.
Add to this the slap in the face given by the government demanding what could amount to a cut of four percent in teachers’ real wages (if inflation runs at current numbers), and the freezing of long-service awards for present teachers and its elimination for new ones. Fair compensation and the demands of keeping the profession attractive make this decision somewhat baffling. Where is the evidence that cutting wages and reducing benefits to teachers makes a school system better?
Second, we are concerned about the government’s attack on collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is a fundamental right, protected by the Charter, and is a price we pay for living in a democratic society.
As a proper employer, the McNeil government needs to sit down and negotiate openly with teachers. Instead, it wants to use its power to dictate an illegal ultimatum. Governments cannot remove the right to strike UNLESS they substitute binding, unfettered third-party arbitration. But the government wants neither a strike nor arbitration. How does running roughshod over basic labour rights make a school system better?
Third, as concerned parents, we recognize that teachers’ working conditions are our children’s learning conditions. For years now, governments in Nova Scotia, Canada and North America have been disparaging teachers and other valuable public workers to lower taxes to the wealthy and devalue public programs. We think it’s time to say, “Enough is enough.”
Teachers are raising some fundamental questions about our public education system and its ability to ensure that all students receive a quality public education on an equitable basis. A lot is at stake and that is why we as parents support teachers as the education experts and defenders of public education.
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This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2016.
God save us from parents who have no idea just how cushy teachers have it.
A first year teacher’s starting salary begins at $46,000 and go as high as
$67.000 depending on education level. At just six years it is $57,000 and as high as $83,000. At the eleven year mark it can be as much as $92,000.
Now add in 10 weeks of vacation time, every single holiday, every storm day and umpteen dozen “in service” days and very fat pensions.
All of this money is going to have to come out of those parent’s pockets as well as from people earning minimum wage and living on pensions.
Tell me again that teachers should be supported in another grab for more money. Cry me a river!!
According to OECD statistics (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development), Canadian teachers rank third of the worlds highest paid teachers. Luxemboug ranks first and the USA ranks sixth of the more than 30 member countries. Meanwhile, in the past 5 years the Nova Scotia Assessment scores continued to decline across the province. Generous pay and benefits do not go hand in hand with academic outcomes. At my daughters school last year, 43 percent of Grade 3 students did not meet Reading standards and 33 percent of Grade 4 did not meet Math standards. Perhaps students are being forgotten as teachers lose focus of the child in their quest to reach the top of the payscale.
Are you for real? Teachers don’t qualify for a first year teachers salary until they get a permanent contract, taking on average 8-12 years. So salary for a teacher with two university degrees and 8-12 years experience is $50k. Furthermore, teachers are paid for 195 days of teaching. Our government decides when those days will be, and the government allocates that pay over twelve months, including the summer. So no, it’s not 10 weeks paid vacation. Teachers have a right to be paid fairly for their job, one that takes on average 55-60 hours a week (google it) and it isn’t on them to balance the budget, it’s on Nova Scotians as a whole. Your lack of education on the subject is the reason we need qualified teachers and a decent education system in this province.
It is obvious to me that you have no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps our elementary students are not meeting reading and math standards because of all the individual assessments that teachers are expected to do during classroom time. That’s right one child gets assessed while the rest are left to fend for themselves. How much are they learning when there’s no one teaching them? Teachers are fighting against these assessments because they aren’t giving them any information they don’t already know and it is hurting our children’s education.
Now let’s consider the behaviours, language barriers, hungry, kids who are traumatized or who have learning and physical disabilities etc in an over filled classroom with little to no support in place to assist the teacher to facilitate the learning of all the students in the classroom. By the time they get to high school the ability of the students in a classroom is so diverse that it’s impossible to teach them all. Please tell me how you could do any better.
Last teachers actually work on inservice days it’s not a day off. They also do numerous hours of work at home during the evening and weekends. They often spend their own money buying much needed things for needy children or their classroom as there isn’t a budget for much of what is needed.
I’m not a teacher, but I see first hand what they deal with and what they do. I hope they can facilitate real change for our children’s education.
Wendy MacDonald:
Summers off: governments fault. Who knew?
Balance budget: not teachers problem. Of course not.
A few points:
1. Don’t come out in an article like this with the BS line that the government only blames teachers for every problem in the school system. That is clearly not the case and that type of rhetoric is just as bad as some the government pumps out.
2. There is no need in an increase in salaries to make the profession attractive. This is related to Wendy’s comment below. The reason it takes so long to get a permanent contract is because of how many people are qualified to be teachers and are looking for jobs in NS. This doesn’t mean teachers don’t deserve a good salary, its just the “how will we recruit more teachers?” argument doesn’t hold water.
Side note: this may also be because of how the union structures term days and such. I have family and friends who are teachers and I’ve heard many frustrated opinions on how this stuff works.
3. I agree with your first point. The government’s efforts to implement change and measure performance and so on has come from neoliberal ideas on how to manage public organizations. These efforts have been mostly unsuccessful for a number of years across various public sectors (health care, education, etc.) in many parts of the world. The seemingly constant change being pushed on teachers is frustrating to watch even from a distance. That’s not to say that these ideas are not well-intentioned, but clearly more consultation and collaboration with teachers needs to be done and the pace of change needs to slow.
The salary statistics I quoted are from the Nova Scotia Teachers Union
website, I did not make them up. Just Google them. They are downloadable as a PDF document. The link is here: http://nstu.ca/images/pklot/Salary%20Scale…
Those salaries will increase even more with the new contract when
it is agreed on.
$46,000 for working only 195 days is one heck of a good deal. Nobody else gets it in this province!
Thadeus, I am bewildered by your apparent dislike for teachers, but can only assume you had a negative experience in your education. You are sadly misinformed. To achieve these high salaries of which you speak, teachers need three degrees – a Bachelors Degree, a BEd, and a Masters. To even begin teaching, they need two degrees. As for hours working, like many others, teachers work countless hours at home preparing for their classes each week. All of the special programs that students get at school, like sports teams, and clubs, are only available due to teachers volunteering their time before school, after school, and during lunch hours. How often do others do that? They, like countless others, pay into their own pensions with every pay check. They, like countless others, have an occupation that we support with our taxes. They, the teachers, pay the same taxes as parents, people making minimum wage, and people on pensions, so I don’t see your point. If you have read anything about the reason for teacher’s dissatisfaction with their contract, it is about their working conditions, not the money.
Mackie:
So if its not about the money why is your every sentence about money?
So if its not about the money, do you support government initiatives outside the bargaining process?
Working conditions translate to money.
Resources translates to money.
Support translates to money.
Dont insult us and say its about the kidsits always about the money…
City Mouse: are you saying the government shouldn’t put money into resources for our chilren’s education? Or that students shouldn’t get extra support?
Teachers are paid well and have good benefits/pension. 100% dental and 100% drugs with long and short term disability, and a pension that the tax payers just topped up with like what? 25 million a few years ago, and will be doing it again in a few more?
195 work days in a year
18 sick days
4 personal days
On average, 6 snow days
2 days equivalent, for appointment time
That equals 165 days out of 365, that’s less than 6 months per year.
Couple that with the fact that a school day only provides students with 5 hours of class time per day. You get paid very well, you have a good work/family balance and you have a paycheck for life if you don’t fuck it up. The government should be selling teaching jobs to the highest bidder!!!
If being a teacher is such a cushy job, then i suggest all if you who are against the teachers should consider that as your next career move! Because according to some, nobody else in this Province gets so much pay for so little work. Sounds like the perfect job to me. Let us know how that works out for you.
I doubt any of us dislike teachers. Teachers are essential. What we are all tired of is the constant whining about how hard done by they are, by the government.
I’m sure the job can be stressful at times. But most jobs are. Most people have to work 40 hour weeks, 48 to 50 weeks a year for a small
fraction of what teachers earn for working.
Teachers work less than 60 of that time, get twice the amount of money,
huge pensions, medical plans and god only knows what else and still are not satisfied. It’s never enough! Worse, they want those who have smaller wages and work more hours to cough up more money every time a contract comes up.
Enough is enough. Teachers count your blessings. Be glad you aren’t
teaching Africa where the pay is next to non existent or Russia where
you wonder if you will get a pay cheque.
There are far worse places to work than Nova Scotia.
For the record, I had some good teachers, some bad. All of them worked
longer hours, for smaller pay (in comparison to today) and did not do
near the amount of complaining as the “entitled” teachers do today.
I think they would be embarrassed by it all.
OMG. The uninformed people here is mind boggling. They have never stepped into a classroom. I have been teaching 21 years. This job has become more difficult each year. I stat until 5 pm. That’s 2 hours after the bell. Unpaid. How may here can say that? Then it’s making every night and on weekends. Again, unpaid. Then there’s the hours spent in intramurals. Again, unpaid. Do you see where I’m going with this? I’ll conclude with mentioning all the data entry we are forced to do. This takes us away from our students. Talk to a teacher before you post. It’s the least you can do.
Easy there, Mackie, no one said they were against anyone. That seems to be the problem with these public union battles, you can’t say anything without being “against” the union. Did I say you should volunteer your time and teach for free? No, I just said you make a decent wage for the hours you work, and the job you do. No one said you can’t have a cost of living increase, that’s fair and equitable.
If I want a raise, in my private sector job, I have to prove that I’m worth it, and that takes hard numbers with a stellar record. Teachers take a different approach, they want to take no responsibility for the decay of the education system they are the front line workers in, stamp their feet and use the children they care so much about as hostages in their little game of political chicken. We all know this is a farce, we see it every 3 or 4 years. We get reminded about how shitty we treat every union employee in this country, riiight around contract time. Teachers get their 15 mins in the news then everything goes back to the status quo after you get your raises. The system will still be broken and it won’t be the teachers fault. Then in four more years, same argument. Maybe the public should add a stipulation in the next contract, teachers get the changes they want as well as the raise, but if nothing changes for the better, you get your wages clawed back. Seems like you already have all the answers and know better than your managers (just like every worker in every field, ever), it just takes more money and less work/responsibility to drag them out of you.
There is a saying… “if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life”. If this doesn’t apply to you, you have no business being an educator. Period. End of story.
The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of teachers in British Columbia regarding their struggle against a provincial government that is against fair collective bargaining in ‘good faith’. Hope the NSTU are able to use this precedence in their struggle for our teachers.
If your child is acting like an asshole like their parents do than they deserve to fail.
Time to pop that bubble wrap in the system! If that takes a strike than so-be-it!
Teachers=Free Babysitting for the welfare momma’s to go play VLT’s on anchor babies dime.
Looks like the ones “against” the teachers are just bitter that they may lose a little “free babysitting” for a bit. Maybe it is their kids who are the ones causing all the disturbances in classrooms and the teachers being forced to pass them so welfare mommy doesn’t complain her little angel FAILED!