In Nassau County, New York City and communities across the country teacher salaries and the standard for measuring teacher performance have been at the center of heated debate.
In many cases teachers are reporting to work without a contract because cash-strapped jurisdictions and the teachers union cannot agree on what is fair and what is possible in these difficult times.
The situation became worse when Albany passed legislation setting a 2 percent tax cap limiting how much school taxes could be raised in a district. The residents in any district can vote to grant their district a waiver but this has to be approved by a supermajority of 60 percent.
Even more challenging is coming up with a fair means of evaluating teachers. One side holds that teachers should be measured by graduation rates and student performance on standardized tests.
The teachers and their union say this will result in teachers being forced to abandon “real learning” in order to “teach to the standardized tests.” They argue that this is not why they became teachers.
The teachers don’t want to spend a large part of each semester going over the questions from last year’s standardized exam. That has nothing to do with learning, they say.
We know that homeowners in our readership area face a heavy tax burden and we don’t pretend that there is a simple solution to the school budget or teacher-evaluation problem. But we are certain that the rhetoric coming from the far right is only adding fuel to the fire.
Last week Sean Hannity took on the teacher’s unions in his national radio talk show. Hannity, who lives in a $4 million, two-acre estate on Long Island’s North Shore, said, “kids in our public schools today aren’t being taught to read and do basic math.”
In fact Hannity knows little or nothing about public schools. His children attend the best private schools. That’s his right. He grew up in Nassau County, not far from our offices, but he didn’t attend public schools. Instead he attended a Catholic seminary, intermediate and high school. He attended a few years of college but never graduated.
Although he appears to believe that he is all knowing, we think he could learn a lot by visiting the public schools in Nassau County.
We are constantly amazed by the achievements in the schools that we cover, the award winners in national science competitions, the National Merit Scholars, writing awards, music and math competitions.
We are equally amazed by the quality of the dedicated men and women who teach these students and make these awards possible. In the elementary schools they go out of their ways to make learning fun. The children are taught to appreciate the many cultures of the world that they live in.
Get off your high horse, Sean, and take a minute to visit these amazing public schools and we think that you’ll be surprised by what you see.
In every district the superintendents have been working hard to improve communication with the communities that they serve. They have created Web sites where they report on what’s going on at their schools and they invite parents to participate in the budget process.
We don’t know what the public schools are like in other parts of the nation but we know that in Mr. Hannity’s backyard they are pretty dang good.
Not only do the children read well and do well in math, most, unlike Mr. Hannity, will probably go to college and graduate.
