Disgusted in Bethlehem
Aug 18th, 2009 by Randy Toman
I received this from a friend of mine who happens to live here in Bethlehem. Thought you might be interested in what they had to say about last nights meeting.
ENJOY:
Last evening I attended the BASD meeting where parking was virtually non-existent, the auditorium was standing room only or people sat on the steps and floor, and teachers came en masse dressed in black shirts to show unity for their cause. Their cause was you guessed it, “it’s for the children”, a refrain we hear continually meant to make you feel lower than dirt. But was their cause really for the children or was it for another more self interested cause?
After all, why should teachers be made to suffer along with the rest of the nation’s population? Shouldn’t they be insulated against the perils of economic downturns while keeping their salaries and benefits packages intact? Being the professionals they are, they belong to unions and we all know what that means, don’t we? In Hellertown unbelievably they haven’t got it yet. No, not the economy stupid, what they didn’t get yet were their new contract negotiated raises – yes, in this climate where people everywhere are losing theirs jobs, they want increases and assurances they will continue to get them for the life of their new contracts. If they cannot understand reality, do we really trust them to teach our children?
Back to BASD and what happened last night. I was amazed that while Jolene Vitalos, President of Bethlehem Education Association did hit the nail on the head as far as blaming the Administration and Board for poor financial management, all the teachers’ union offered were some few concessions in allowing as how Athletic Directors could go back to the classrooms, maybe some elementary school buildings could share a principal, where were any meaningful concessions offered? I mean serious and real-life based concessions, like giving up some benefits across the board, offering some percentage salary cuts across the board to make up the loss? If they really and truly cared about the children and really and truly understood the issues this district, this state and this country are facing, they would have done so. Not they. Oh no, they were going to hang fast, hold on and let the rest of us suffer (along with the precious children they say they so deeply care about). Well, so do I and so do we care about the children. Many times in my career I along with others had to endure benefit cuts and even salary cuts in order to keep our jobs and sometimes those cuts lasted several years. We all waited and worked for better days to come and eventually they did. But as often happens, bad times came around again, and then we had to do it all over again. It’s called sacrifice folks.
In a perfect world, we would all want everything for everyone, but not if it means only some of us sacrifice at the foot of the god of greed when it comes to teachers unions.
Disgusted in Bethlehem
Almost every city and/or state that is liberal democrat controlled is broke and in a hole. The same thing is true about the schools. They are over-regulated, over funded with our tax dollars, over-controlled by the unions and the parents are the last to be listened to. The schools sytem is run by the elitist liberals and they look at the regular folks as the unwashed, in my opinion! All we have to do is look at the product of these schools. The students are NOT getting the best education for the money spent and the lack of dicipline and respect for our elders among the youth today is nothing short of a pending disaster for our country.
I went to several graduation ceremonies at public schools and private schools lately and the difference in the way the students conducted themselves towards the teachers and parents was like night and day. The conduct of the students at the public schools was appalling! Our future looks mighty dim!