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Detroit teachers staged a second day of sick-outs Tuesday after the city’s emergency manager said that unless the state Legislature approves sending more money to the district, there is not enough in the coffers to pay teachers their already-earned salaries after June 30.
Take today’s poll and have your say on whether you’d have done the same.
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This is really a double-edged sword. While I agree the teachers should be paid for the work they’ve done, if there’s no money there’s no money. The adults messed it up again and the children are the ones to suffer.
The State of Michigan has been running DPS and has been for 8 years. Michigan Constitution requires Michigan to provide for schools. Teachers have been told there is no money to pay them (because the Emergency Managers have over expended for the past 8 years). The legislature refuses to carry out their constitutional obligation and fund the schools. Would any other employee group work for nothing? Why are teachers vilified because they expect to be paid for their work? The Michigan legislature is being paid, but they aren’t doing their job.
What is ruining Detroit ruined Flint, and it wasn’t just management at GM, not just white collars. The blue-collared folks with unions on steroids also abused the system. I knew of people on 3rd shift knockin down double and triple time who were going in and sleeping in corners for the bulk of their shift. No wonder they thought I was stupid going after a college degree, clocking up student loan debt, to get a better way of life. I applaud Detroit teachers for trying to keep the flame of unionization alive, but deplore them for their entitlement attitude. We need balance.
Entitlement attitude? Really? A person opts to spread their EARNED pay out evenly throughout the year and you are calling it entitlement? They are asking for their EARNED wages.
I don’t know where you worked that you saw that but I would hazard a guess that it was the so called trades …you know the guys with educations that didn’t work on the line. I can tell you with authority that NONE of the folks on the line were sleeping in the corners because those cars don’t put their own parts on while traveling down the line. Let me just add…those guys sleeping in the corners had a boss whose JOB it is to keep track of what they are doing. I’m a white collared worker and for every blue collared slacker I can show you a white collared slacker….in just about every industry including the elected nutjobs we have running the state. Now can we get back to discussing the plight of the Teachers???
Well said Dawn
If they chose 26 pays they will be paid about 84% of what they are owed if the checks stop on June 30th. That said, I think they should show up, then demonstrate forcefully after school is out. They are not working for no pay at all, and the kids deserve our best.
And the powers-that-be will not pay a cent after the fact.
Wait, Tim, you think that wanting to be paid for work already performed is an “entitlement attitude”?
There have been State-appointed Emergency Financial Managers in Detroit Public Schools for seven years. The buildings and services have been deteriorated to the point of disgrace. Now, a month and a half from the end of the school year, the EFM finally lets the staff know that there won’t be enough money to pay them for the time they have already worked. I think the teachers have put up with an awful lot before this point.
Hell yeah, they’re justified! You couldn’t pay me enough to go into those moldy, rodent infested, crumbling school buildings to teach; and I SURE as hell wouldn’t be doing it for no pay!
Once again, the rotten apples spoil the whole bushel. For example, the principals who took kickbacks on top of a $98,000 salary not counting benefits, were found to have financial troubles, and some of the money went to their family members and friends, this is all according to an Assoc. Press article (5/1/2016).
The students and hard working honest teachers and principals should not have to be the victims here. Will the administration be getting paychecks when the teachers are not?
Who is doing the math on the schools’ budget? DPS has had financial trouble as far back as I can remember. Back to the chalkboard everyone! What is more important than our kids?
Financial Emergency Manager = a person with a FINANCE DEGREE that is supposed to understand a BUDGET! So what happened???? Snyder put another one of his buddies in charge that couldn’t get a job in the real world???
As a retired educator of 38 years, I can tell you the most stressful time of my career was contract negotiations and financial deprivation in our schools. We notice big districts like Detroit because of the sheer numbers of teachers and students but many small districts in our state have been experiencing this kind of aggravation for many years. The economic collapse of 07-08 is still being felt around the state. Politicians talk about caring about our children but in reality, many of them send their children to elite private or parochial schools and could care less about the rest of the population. The Detroit teachers will never see their money if it is left up to the politicians. Perhaps the EFM should declare a school holiday for the remainder of the year. The teachers can then draw unemployment while the legislature and governor make their political maneuvers to solve the mess they created in the first place.
With all due respect, can you elaborate on how the governor and legislature created the DPS mess?
Get your facts straight, first of all, no such animal as triple overtime in the shops. You are paid 8Hrs straight time, and 16Hrs holiday pay. And I worked more then I CARE to remember in 25 years of skilled trades work at the Grand Blanc Plant. I was a third shifter, I don’t remember any sleeping bags in the corners, when you only have 5 or 6 people working on a holiday shift Tim, How do you just disappear? Apparently you just feel nobody works in the shops, just like any work place, you have 7 to 8 workers, 2 to 3 dregs, so your going to lump everybody together. P.S. If you think it was so fun leaving a wife and four boys on the holidays for your so called triple time, It was just a blast when it was time to leave, Ya, wish you could have been there.
It never ends. Time to screw the teachers out of what they have earned.
My blood pressure still goes up when I read about educators being disrespected.
I taught for 28 years in a nicer district. No rodents in the classroom, but some in the administration. They always got their pay, and increases without fighting for it. When I see the conditions in Detroit schools, I wonder why any teacher reports to school at all. And the children, many are deprived living in poor neighborhoods. What kind of future is ahead for them, if they can’t even look forward to going to a warm rodent and mold free school. Shame on the powers that be!!
If my kids missed two days of school because of a mini-strike prompted by a possible pay shortage nearly 2 months from now, I would be pissed off. Demonstrate. Yell from the highest mountain top. Do what you have to do. But don’t use kids who desperately need education as pawns in your political maneuvering. Also don’t blame Emergency Managers. They were put in place not because DPS was fiscally secure. DPS ran itself into the ground due to its own incompetence and corruption.
Teacher shortages are coming nation wide, and DPS will be in horrible shape. Why any teacher in his/her right mind would choose to work there is beyond me.
This nation deserves a good teacher shortage for the way we treat them.
Maybe all the people that think the teachers should work for reduced pay, or no paychecks, should send their money to be given to the teachers. How much do you think they would get???
Why don’t Detroit people acknowledge their fault in these messes they have? They elected bad leadership for years just like Flint and now the rest of us must bail them out. The teachers should get their money but I hate the union bully tactics they use to make their point. They’re educated people acting like morons. Teachers deserve twice what they are paid. School administrations need to go to business school to figure out how to run a profitable business, not just ask the taxpayers for more money when they wasted the last millage voted in.