To the Editor:
In response to the question and obvious opinion asking if teachers are entitled to or worth $60,000 their first year of teaching. To answer this question, I offer my own personal experience.
I worked in a major urban school system. For my first five years, I made well under $10,000. This is after I spent over $60,000 of my own money and certainly time to earn a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree, plus 30 post-grad credits in my chosen field. This is considered a doctoral equivalency.
My experience with physically and mentally handicapped and delayed children is also extensive. I worked for two summers at the A. Harry Moore School Camp for Handicapped Children.
The A. Harry Moore School, in Jersey City, was, at the time, one of the most advanced schools for handicapped children.
The second summer I worked at the camp, I was the director of the college students in the special education curriculum and had to spend two weeks at the camp for a ‘hands-on’ teaching experience with children who were handicapped.
These students had to even sleep in the same cabin with six children and care for them in every possible and imaginable way.
While teaching in this urban school district, I joined the NEA/NJEA and the local for these two organizations, the JCEA. Here, we were confronted with a massive political power that controlled almost half the entire state. They also controlled our contract and salary.
They refused to provide a needed raise in salary and 3,000 teachers and school employees voted to ‘strike’ until we had a contract. This resulted in political power demanding that teachers striking be arrested because public employees weren’t allowed to strike.
I, along with a dozen fellow teachers of both genders and all ages, was arrested and sentenced to 30 days in jail with 20 days suspended.
Young teachers, old men, and ladies who were waiting to retire, went to jail. I went first by myself. A few years later, the mayor and the entire political establishment he put together were ‘indicted’ for embezzling over $50 million of state and federal funds earmarked for school funding. They were found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison for their effort.
The teachers’ records were ‘expunged’ because we were correct in our effort to gain a fair contract. The judge who sentenced us was appointed to the bench by the power and influence of the mayor and Hudson County Democratic chairman who were in prison. That judge suddenly retired from the bench.
Please don’t ask if any teacher is entitled to a $60,000 salary. We’re worth at least twice as much and even more. Half of the time, we do more to raise children than their natural parents.
Also, please consider the kindergarten teacher who was shot by her own 6-year-old student with Mommy’s gun. I also was injured via a stabbing wound provided by a sixth-grade student who used a sharpened, ‘rat-tailed,’ heavy plastic comb, while I was breaking up a fist fight in my classroom.
I’ve been slammed against a brick wall by a parent who used a steel door to do this because I refused her entry into the school so she could beat up a student. She did time in jail for that effort.
As a working teacher, I, along with two clergymen of different faiths, organized and opened a nonprofit corporation to get children off the street after the school day ended.
We ran an afterschool program that continued for the next 22 years. We were funded by the state and federal governments and employed educators who had earned a master’s degree or better to continue the school day in an atmosphere that was fun and educational. I wrote that original grant proposal.
Over the next 22 years, we cared for and, yes, loved the children in our care. Over the life of this project alone, we brought in over $1 million, and every penny went for ‘childcare!’ This included feeding the kids, transporting the kids, and also salaries for those who cared for and extended their school day.
We’re worth $60,000 per year … well, if you bet on us, you’ll win!
