Teacher strike

[grump]

Read in the fish wrap that the Buffalo teachers might vote to go on strike if there's no new contract by October 17. My only question...how will anyone be able to tell?

[joe d.]

Read in the fish wrap that the Buffalo teachers might vote to go on strike if there's no new contract by October 17. My only question...how will anyone be able to tell?

Perhaps you should spend a day in an inner city school to experience what a teacher goes thru to teach in a Buffalo school environment..instead of making ignorant comments from your padded cell!

[grump]

Perhaps you should spend a day in an inner city school to experience what a teacher goes thru to teach in a Buffalo school environment..instead of making ignorant comments from your padded cell!

Joe d., I'll be sure to add your name to the list of people who need a safe thread where nobody can say anything bad about Buffalo. Right now, that list includes 300miles, Linda, HipKat and now you. It's a union that's spent the last 12 years trying to preserve its health insurance provisions for boob jobs and asslifts. I almost doubled over when I read the unintentionally funny and revealing comment by the Buffalo teacher who acknowledged the no teacher works a 6 hour and 50 minute day. Something everyone has known for years. Just to clarify, I don't reside in a padded cell; typically, those are reserved for people who don't recognize reality, e.g., people who can't recognize that the Buffalo school district is an abject failure.

[WSFirst]

Perhaps you should spend a day in an inner city school to experience what a teacher goes thru to teach in a Buffalo school environment..instead of making ignorant comments from your padded cell!

But the teachers selected the job to apply for and continue to work in that "environment". If the salary and benefits are so bad, why do they continue to work in the City of Buffalo? Every year a teacher retires in Suburbs, if the COB is hiring qualified teachers to start, a teacher with 5+ years of experience would be an easy hire for the suburbs, correct? Why don't they leave the COB teaching position?

[Genoobie]

But the teachers selected the job to apply for and continue to work in that "environment". If the salary and benefits are so bad, why do they continue to work in the City of Buffalo? Every year a teacher retires in Suburbs, if the COB is hiring qualified teachers to start, a teacher with 5+ years of experience would be an easy hire for the suburbs, correct? Why don't they leave the COB teaching position?

Often times the suburbs won't give reciprocity for years worked. In other words, you take a pay cut to transfer to a suburban district. However, I know of five teachers that have left for suburban district from our building. From 2008~2014, suburban districts were also hiring and then cutting. I suspect that as time goes on, you'll see no new teachers in the COB.

[grump]

Often times the suburbs won't give reciprocity for years worked. In other words, you take a pay cut to transfer to a suburban district. However, I know of five teachers that have left for suburban district from our building. From 2008~2014, suburban districts were also hiring and then cutting. I suspect that as time goes on, you'll see no new teachers in the COB.

I'm not trying to be snide but if they get no new teachers what happens then? Father Time is undefeated which means the ones there now won't be there some bright sunny Monday morning in the future. Split the city into geographic areas and assign kids to the contiguous suburban district? Just close up shop? Don't forget, the children are constitutionally entitled to a "sound basic education".

[steven]

there is a teacher glut right now, not the other way around unless you are willing to work at the catholic schools that pay half of what you would get from a city or suburban district. I personally am aware of two teachers that have been trying to get a teacher job for a year now ( both are math teachers)

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

It's going to be interesting to see how this shakes out. Buffalo already gets the highest per pupil allocation from NYS and it's looking for more....

The City of Buffalo contributes just 8% of the $784 million budget. If Buffalo were to match the 17% of Rochester, that would mean $63 million more from the city. There obviously is some money back into the city...regardless of the tax rate. What's interesting is Sean Ryan and Tim Kennedy do not think this is an issue...even though they represent high taxed suburban communities like Cheektowaga and Hamburg.


Even if you remove the performance issues, if Buffalo teachers want to match suburban school pay they should match suburban teachers in the length of the school day, dropping full retiree health care and a reduction of personal days.

What I find amusing is Rumore is crying about a $20k gap between Buffalo teachers and suburban teachers but fails to accept that Buffalo teachers work at least 10% less than suburban teachers.

[WNYresident]

Why doesn't the city just pay for education like the burbs do?

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

Why doesn't the city just pay for education like the burbs do?

I don't know why NYS does not allow cities to levy taxes for schools but for whatever reason that's the case. My assumption is that somewhere along the way NYS realized that the "Big Five" would not be able to tax enough to provide a minimum level of education that's required and in turn took over funding.

I also feel this only exacerbated the situation as since people in Buffalo were not forced to pay for schools they either did not participate (e.g. Parental involvement) or pulled their kids out of Public and placed them in Private/Catholic schools. One has to wonder what the Buffalo schools would have looked like in the 70s and 80s if parents who wanted to put their kid in Catholic schools had to do so while at the same time footing a bill for public schools like suburban parents do.

Of course, Catholics are in decline in Buffalo...down from like 80% of the population in the 50s and the Catholic schools are also in trouble. Faced with a lack of options parents simply moved to the burbs. Rinse and repeat for 30 years...

[WNYresident]

Oh so because it wasn't "their money" being spent on Buffalo School it basically got out of hand?

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

Oh so because it wasn't "their money" being spent on Buffalo School it basically got out of hand?

That's my inference. I think over the last 40 years you have had 3 groups of parents in Buffalo.

Group 1 - Parents who don't focus on education and use public schools. They don't vote for the school board or just vote for who they are told to and don't care.
Group 2 - Parents who do focus on education but use private/catholic schools. They don't vote for the school board because it does not matter really.


These two make up the majority of Buffalo.


Group 3 - Parents who do focus on education and use public schools. They do vote but their vote does not matter.


The group 3 parents were 'paid off' with schools like City Honors and now Charters. Which really are tools to avoid parents in group 3 from having their kids go to school with kids from group 1 and to bypass forced bussing...which is a whole other pile of dog sh*t.




Put it this way. In Buffalo when selecting the last 3 Superintendents there has been a bigger focus on the color of their skin rather than their ability to improve the schools. Parents who GAF about their kids education don't care about the race or sex of the teacher, school administrators or superintendent. You don't try to play the equality game when your kids education is at stake.

[Save Us]

there is a teacher glut right now, not the other way around unless you are willing to work at the catholic schools that pay half of what you would get from a city or suburban district. I personally am aware of two teachers that have been trying to get a teacher job for a year now ( both are math teachers)

Government fails the people when it compensates more than what is necessary to attract and retain workers.. plain and simple. This should be the MO of government sadly unions ensure that it is not.

If people don't like their jobs they should quit, there is nothing holding them there. The notion of contract is ridiculous as NY is an at will employment state. There are plenty of qualified candidates that would take these jobs. On a global note, teachers would enjoy their jobs more if they were not teaching kids raised by 'parents' that were suited ill suited for the job in the first place. The captain obvious, elephant in the room statement must be made.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

Government fails the people when it compensates more than what is necessary to attract and retain workers.. plain and simple. This should be the MO of government sadly unions ensure that it is not.

If people don't like their jobs they should quit, there is nothing holding them there. The notion of contract is ridiculous as NY is an at will employment state. There are plenty of qualified candidates that would take these jobs. On a global note, teachers would enjoy their jobs more if they were not teaching kids raised by 'parents' that were suited ill suited for the job in the first place. The captain obvious, elephant in the room statement must be made.

I know it would never happen and you would get called a racist for even suggesting it but....

I wonder what BPS would look like, from both the teachers and parents (who care) perspective, if they developed a couple of charter schools that extracted the most troubled kids and placed them in a program designed to give them the tools to actually become productive citizens at some point in time.

Paladino suggested something like this years ago...and he was called a racist. But at the end of the day, there are kids who live in abject poverty and come from homes where there is semblance of any parenting at all. These kids are more focused on things like where their next meal is going to come from...so it's understandable that they DGAF about math or history.

With this being the case, is it really racist to suggest building a charter school or two...with dorms...that provided both the education and parenting for these kids? The great irony is it's a very liberal idea to suggest things like a basic minimum income and perfectly acceptable to give handouts to adults. But for some batsh*t reason it's racist to say outloud that some kids need to be raised by the public because their parents are worthless.

[WNYresident]

So what do the Buffalo Teachers want? Just more?