Teachers' Union Roughshod Maryland Senator into Supporting Tax Increases
Maryland Senator Unconvinced by Barrage of Frederick County Teachers' Calls
March 25, 2011Frederick News-Post - Phones in the office of Maryland Sen. David Brinkley were ringing off the hook Tuesday evening.
At about 5 p.m., he started getting phone calls from Frederick County teachers requesting his support for tax increases — specifically the millionaire's tax, an increase to the alcohol tax and instituting combined reporting to get more from large corporations.
Why was he getting so many calls? The Maryland State Education Association hired a company to call teachers from throughout the state, and then connect them with their senators.
Brinkley, who said he planned to vote against all three tax proposals, said teachers seemed caught off guard and ill-prepared to speak to their senators.
He doesn't believe any of the taxes being passed would help teachers, and he also doesn't believe teachers would be affected if they aren't passed.
"They're being told that their jobs are threatened," Brinkley said. "This is the roughshod way of the union -- get people afraid when there's no basis for it."
Adam Mendelson, a spokesman for the statewide association, said it's important that teachers support revenue enhancements to prevent devastating cuts to schools and essential services.
The House of Delegates restored some education funding in its version of the budget, but that's still $35.5 million short of recommendations by the Thornton Commission, a state commission that presented education funding reforms in January 2002.
Superintendents in Prince George's and Montgomery counties have proposed budgets that call for hundreds of teacher and school employee layoffs, Mendelson said.
"In Frederick, there have been long discussions about the programs and positions that would be reduced there," he said.
Rising public discontent has focused on the public employee, while public employees increasingly take a hostile attitude toward the public. Why is no one pointing out that unions are supposed to be for the people against the corporation, not for the people against the people?
Public sector strikes enjoy a heightened degree of effectiveness not shared by private sector work stoppages. There is little question that strikes against government are intolerable. Therefore, collective bargaining as an institution is inappropriate to government. Strikes destroy democratic government by giving the public sector union -- a very small special interest group -- disproportionate influence and therefore effective control of the public decision making process. Binding arbitration completely removes elected officials from the process.
The collective bargaining laws have given enormous political power to the public sector unions. No matter what the real intent of these laws, by any objective standard they are not in the public interest. They represent an expression of the selfish self-interest of public sector union organizers and, indirectly, the interest of the politicians who enact them in order to curry favor with the union's political operatives.
The existence of public sector collective bargaining makes public employees "super citizens" and relegates the rest of the public to second class status.
There is ample evidence that the growth of teacher unions was a factor in the decline of the quality of public education. The dramatic rise in teacher union membership and collective bargaining in public education began in 1962. By 1976 teacher union membership had more than doubled. The decline in SAT scores began in 1963 and continued throughout this period. Yet all of the studies on the state of public education in America and the challenges it faces in the future completely ignore the question of the union role in the decline of quality. [Source]
The whole concept of public servants being able to unionize is abhorrent and should be outlawed. Public service unions and the politicians they "negotiate" with are not on opposite sides of the bargaining table like private sector unions and corporate management. They sit together and share a quid pro quo relationship over the plundering of public funds. [Bill, February 25, 2011]
The average salary for FCPS teachers is $67,150. The average salary for Frederick County public workers is $45,344. Note that teachers work 10-months vs. 12 months. Also, it is not uncommon for high ranking FCPS administrators to earn $140,000 per year or more. [Source]
- Frederick County Maryland Teacher and Administrator Salaries (Search By Name)
- What is the average teacher salary in each state?
- Directory of links to federal, state, county and municipal government salary and employee name databases
- Federal Employees Database of Salaries
| NAME | POSITION TITLE | HIRE DATE | SCHOOL | ANNUAL SALARY | GENDER | ETHNIC | OVERTIME |
| Lippy,Daniel P | Principal, Middle | 08/26/96 | West Frederick Middle | $95,896.00 | Male | WHITE | $0.00 |
| McGrath,Eileen C | CASS Worker | 09/26/94 | Community Agency Schl Services | $95,791.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Kroll,Karen D | Teacher, Computer Science | 08/31/83 | Media Services | $95,791.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Rushing,Karen C | Speech Pathologist | 09/27/89 | Rock Creek School | $95,791.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Phebus,Debra S | Guidance Counselor | 08/26/81 | Walkersville High | $95,791.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Pollock,Shelley L | CASS Worker | 08/09/04 | Community Agency Schl Services | $95,791.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Beavan,Robert A | Teacher, Ag/CTE | 08/26/81 | Catoctin High | $95,791.00 | Male | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Trammell,Pamela G | Teacher Specialist | 11/25/92 | ES Improve Instr Adm Division | $95,791.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Weinstein,Linda A | Guidance Counselor | 08/29/89 | Gov Thomas Johnson High | $95,791.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Crawford,Kathryn L | Cert Personnel Officer | 08/28/85 | Certificated Personnel | $95,429.88 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Genove,Catharina S | Assistant Principal, Elem | 07/01/02 | Spring Ridge Elementary | $94,526.00 | Female | HISPA | $0.00 |
| Glass,Cynthia | Pupil Personnel Worker | 08/16/04 | Sec Improve Instr Adm Division | $94,526.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Owens,Margaret A | Psychologist | 07/01/06 | Psychology Services | $94,526.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Wolf,Ina M | Coordinator, Central | 07/01/06 | Special Ed/Psychology Services | $94,526.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Trapane,Mary A | Supervisor, Admin Systems | 02/24/97 | Technology Services Admin. | $94,348.80 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Dotterer,E Suzette | Senior Accountant | 05/29/86 | Finance | $94,348.80 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Derbyshire,William P | School Therapist | 10/05/98 | Rock Creek School | $93,334.00 | Male | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Shelley,Barbara Y | Teacher, Targeted Intervention | 08/01/02 | ES Improve Instr Adm Division | $93,334.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Richardson,Ilva M | Teacher Specialist | 08/29/88 | Special Ed/Psychology Services | $93,334.00 | Female | BLACK | $0.00 |
| Knapp,Penelope A | Teacher, Computer Science | 09/25/89 | Media Services | $93,334.00 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Herr,Mark W | Senior Project Manager | 03/23/98 | Construction Maintenance | $93,307.03 | Male | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Hawthorne,Thomas C | Teacher, Ag/CTE | 02/28/83 | Linganore High | $93,247.00 | Male | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Howser,Curtis B | Guidance Counselor | 09/01/76 | Catoctin High | $93,247.00 | Male | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Main,Eddie L | Teacher, Outdoor School | 08/29/73 | Outdoor School | $93,247.00 | Male | WHITE | $0.00 |
| Dattoli,Cheri M | Food Service Officer | 09/01/84 | Food Service | $93,195.07 | Female | WHITE | $0.00 |
Read More...
No comments:
Post a Comment