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Community Corner

Opinion: Support for the Teachers Needed

Miller Place resident Lisa Reitan sounds off supporting the teachers amidst budget controversy.

It is quite fashionable right now to bash teachers, and it is very demoralizing for the teacher to hear their profession constantly getting put down.

Most people don’t know that teachers hold a Masters Degree and more. That means that they have been to school for as long as a dentist, a lawyer, accountants and many other professionals. In New York State to be a certified teacher you have to take a series of tests to get a certification in your education field and must earn a Masters Degree within a certain number of years.

That being said, what gives anyone the right to stand up at a board meeting, and say that a teacher doesn’t “deserve” to make a certain amount of money? That is what has happened at past Miller Place board meetings. I find it disrespectful and infuriating to say the least, and I would love to know what that person does for a living so I can tell them they don't “deserve “to make a certain amount of money.

I do understand the frustration at paying the taxes that we pay here in Miller Place. I do understand that people feel that the only thing they can control in their taxes is the teacher’s salaries, but let's face it, teachers did not cause you to lose your job, teachers did not cause the financial meltdown, and teachers did not cause the Federal deficit.

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When other people were getting huge bonuses, and 5-10 percent annual raises before the economy tanked, teachers were still only getting three percent raises.
Remember that. Most teachers I know have two parents working… no one is a SAHM or dad.

I know many people say, 'but there are so many bad teachers.' Really? There are always a few bad anything; doctors, lawyers, accountants, parents. There are more good teachers out there than you realize. Just because you had a negative experience with a teacher may not mean that teacher is bad teacher. So, you bash an entire profession for a few bad apples? It amazes me when I hear someone
say, “Anyone could be a teacher.” Somehow I doubt it and I think the statistic is that within the first five years, 50 percent leave the profession. How many times have you heard a parent say in July 'I can’t wait til Johnny goes back to school.'? Imagine, the average parent can’t handle their own kids for a few hours a day, for a few weeks.

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This country needs to band together and stop working against its educators, but rather with them. According to Henry Giroux, teachers are “Seldom accorded the status of intellectuals that they deserved, they (teachers) remain the most important component in the learning process for students, while serving as a moral compass to gauge how seriously a society invests in its youth and in the future. Yet,
teachers are being deskilled, unceremoniously removed from the process of school governance, largely reduced to technicians or subordinated to the authority of security guards.”

The money that is taken away from our communities by the state and Federal governments must be given back; we have to start investing more in the education of our children. Taking away tenure, and making teachers not get pay raises, or paying for their health benefits is not the answer. What kind of educator will this type of system entice in the future for our kids? Even if you don’t have kids in school, it is your future; your future business person, congresswomen, teacher, singer, lawyer, doctor.

It is important to remember that teachers pay taxes, hold mortgages, have daycare bills and are members of your community. Once again Henry Giroux reminds us that “The rhetoric of accountability, privatization and standardization that now dominates both major political parties does more than deskill teachers, weaken teacher unions, dumb down the curriculum and punish students; it also offers up a model for education that undermines it as a public good. Under such circumstances, teacher work and autonomy are not only devalued; learning how to govern and be a critical citizen in a fragile democracy are hijacked.”

This means that just because it is out there in the news do your own research. Check out a couple of articles about what is happening in education. Check out how our money for our public schools –yes right here in Miller Place- is being siphoned off to Charter schools, and private schools. Read about how those types of educational models are not working. A large organization called Parents Across America;
(PAA) has just approached Congress about properly funding our public education. “PAA opposes the expansion of charter schools and other forms of school privatization. Charter schools in New Orleans and elsewhere often push out students with disabilities or do not serve them well, and there have been many instances where such children have been turned away.

It’s time for the federal government to support policies that strengthen every neighborhood school so that every child gets a top quality education,” said Karran Harper Royal, a New Orleans parent and founding PAA member.

These are the types of conversations we should be having with each other at board meetings.

More of our Miller Place community should attend the board meetings, and become more educated about the process and not just regurgitating what they think they hear from their neighbor, sort of like the game of telephone. Next week we will have the opportunity to meet with the potential candidates for the Board of Education. Get to the meeting, and find out what these potential candidates stand for. They will be representing you in your community and the decisions that will affect our kids.

So next, time you want to tell a teacher they make too much money for what they do, instead call a Congressperson in your district demanding more funding
for education, write a letter to your state senator, and attend a board meeting...get involved.

Editor's Note: This opinion piece is part of  Patch is also interested in your viewpoint as well. Please send your opinion to Rich.Arleo@Patch.com

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