My name is Jessie. My husband is a teacher for Paterson Public Schools. I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
My husband (Doug) started teaching High School English at Eastside High School in Paterson NJ in 1999. In 2010 he moved over to International High School, still in Paterson, where he teaches Senior English and Public Speaking. In 2010 the most recent teacher contract expired. Teacher pay was frozen during contract negotiations. Negotiations that are still going on. Still dragging on. As a matter of fact, the fact finding meetings (a stage in the negotiations used when a third party is needed to help reach an agreement) were set to be finished before the 2013/2014 school year started, but the Board of Ed managed to stall so that the last meeting is now scheduled for Sept. 30, 2013; a month into the school year.
For three years the Paterson teachers have been working with no contract and no raises. Not just no raises, but not even a cost of living increase. If a teacher was being paid $40,000 a year when the last contract expired, they are still being paid $40,000 a year. Their take home pay, however, is going down every year. This is not only because taxes have risen (everyone gets to deal with that,) but also because each year the teachers have had to pay a higher percent into their benefits. For example, as of the end of last school year, my husband’s take home pay had gone down $400 a month from when the last contract ended. Yet all our bills still go up. The Paterson teachers are taking home less money every year, but the cost of gas goes up, groceries go up, taxes go up, rent goes up, expenses keep rising, but their income keeps falling.
In the last week alone, two teachers who have been teaching in Paterson for over a decade each put in their resignation. They just couldn’t afford to work for less money every year. These are seasoned teachers who knew how to teach, and who knew the kids. They will now have to be replaced, most likely with brand new teachers who have little to no experience. Everyone has to be replaced at some point, and everyone has to start somewhere, but loosing experienced and successful teachers because of falling pay is not acceptable. Would you stay at a job if your base pay was frozen for 3 years and more was being taken out of each paycheck each year?
I could go on, but I want this page to be more of an intro to the problem and a table of contents.
So following is a list of articles / posts / information on all of this. If you have anything you think should be added, please let me know. I am happy to share links to other websites here. I am also happy to post something for you if you do not have a website. Just send me your article to [email protected]. I would really love open letters to the Board of Ed encouraging them to sign a contract for the Paterson teachers, written by teachers AND ESPECIALLY by the Paterson parents. After all, it is YOUR children who will suffer when my husband and all the other experienced teachers are forced to quit, or end up so disheartened and depressed by this situation that they are no longer efficient teachers. It’s hard to do a good job when you are constantly being told you are not worth anything.
Read these:
A Letter to the Paterson Board of Education
My note to those calling for the heads of the American Teachers
Paterson Superintendent receives a $15,759 bonus for the districts performance (so he gets a bonus for what the teachers have done, and the teachers don’t even get a cost of living increase)
Teachers Stand Up Against Merit Pay
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
Some info about Current Standardized Testing:
When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids ~ Washington Post (interesting to see a well~educated, successful Board member say his life would be much different if he had been forced to take this test in 10th grade and then judged by it)
Some info about Common Core:
The Biggest Fallacy of the Common Core Standards
Why there’s backlash against the Common Core
A Letter to Educators Who Embrace the #commoncore ~ Peg with Pen
Three Simple Arguments Against Common Core ~ With A Brooklyn Accent
The Trouble with the Common Core ~ ReThinking Schools
Fifty Shades of the Common Core: how much porn is too much for high schoolers? ~ Inappropriate “literature” that teachers are made to teach with the Common Core.
What happens when schools are run by those who have never taught
Why Philadelphia schools will close their doors forever
Teacher Resignation Letter From Gerald Conti Says His Profession ‘No Longer Exists’
