THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601200007
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
After reading ``Throw money at schools'' (editorial, Jan. 12) during a weekend visit to Hampton Roads, I was flabbergasted. I thought journalists were supposed to be the guardians of the people, not of the teachers' unions.
In Pennsylvania, teachers unions used prolonged walkouts and selective strikes - borderline terrorism in which the teachers don't actually announce they're striking until hours before the start of the school day - until school boards were forced to meet their often unreasonable demands.
The teachers faced no penalty for their actions; in fact, they were able to draw not only strike pay from their union but also collected their full teaching salary when they returned to the classrooms.
Now we have school districts like mine - a rural district that serves about 18,000 residents, with graduating classes of around 200-250 students. The teachers here - with no experience, only their degree - earn nearly double the average for the district and pay nothing toward generous benefits (most workers here pay 10 percent to 30 percent of their insurance premiums).
Most of the districts nearby have similar sweetheart contracts - while the private and parochial schools, which pay about 40 percent less, consistently produce better students and, more important, better citizens.
Across the nation, study after study has shown that more money fails to fix education's problems. If there is a place for higher pay in education, it should be reserved for the teachers who have the most experience and the most education.
Unless things have changed drastically since I lived in Virginia, it's not more money the state's schools need but better distribution. How much academic funding is being wasted on nonessential programs? How much is spent on new athletic facilities vs. libraries? Condom giveaways vs. textbooks? Are rural Virginia schools still lagging city schools because of unfair state-funding formulas?
Noticeably absent in your editorial are actual salary numbers; you use only a few, small-dollar comparisons. Perhaps a comparison of the average teacher salary to the average Hampton Roads salary would make a better argument. Also missing is comparison of the performance of Virginia's students against those of other states. After all, if Virginia is still an academic leader as it was in the past, I'd think the adage ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it'' would apply.
Virginia's schools, like other states, likely suffer most from lack of student motivation. Unfortunately, no pay raise for teachers can fix that. Student motivation and reward programs offer academic incentives similar to those athletes have been given for years - and they work. Perhaps that is where you should throw your money.
JEFFREY L. FISHBEIN
Selinsgrove, Pa., Jan. 16, 1996 by CNB