Another day, Another Teacher Bashing from North County Times

What is it about our friends at the North County Times that they dislike teachers and education so much?

Today our North County Times friends directed a good reporter to write a bad story regarding an increasing staff at North County schools while the number of students is falling. Could it be a union conspiracy? Could evil union members be padding the payroll?

Sounds bad when written that way. But NCTimes failed to mention that this increase costs the local taxpayers NOTHING. That's right. NO extra money for the extra staff. Some money for increased K-3 staff for class size reduction came from state money, other money needed to hire additional NON-teaching staff necessary when new schools were built, came out of finite pot of money that school districts have thus reducing salaries for all already employed staff.

Here is the URL for the latest North County Times hit piece against the good teachers and school staff that sacrifice so much for our North County students.

http://nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/article_ad9428ea-7c67-50f3-8189-e1baa43aabbd.html?mode=story

My posts after reading the article:

Don't you wonder who "suggested" the topic of this article? Which of the virulent anti-middle class, anti- union editorial troika "thought" it was a "good idea" to write an article focusing on increased staff. Obviously to give the PHONY impression to the easily fooled that increased staff meant increased taxpayer cost. (Actually the more staff, the less in the district budget to pay other staff members).

Don't you wonder why the main topic of this article is increased staff/fewer students instead of the far better more important story having to do with increased learning with smaller class sizes and uncomplaining teachers who have accepted lower salary and a steady drop in San Diego County school district salary rankings as staff size increases?

Here is another great story, why aren't the teachers complaining? Why aren't they going on strike as their salary rank drops? Shouldn't there be an article about how local teachers are great human beings willing to give up salary to help their students?

As this article mentions the number one reason for more teachers is K-3 Class Size Reduction. CSR is a GOOD THING. In VUSD K-3 teachers had 32 students per class before the state funded class size reduction. Class size reduction took that down to twenty per classroom. Which means that for those grades one third more teachers were hired and students get far more individual attention.

Smaller class sizes, with all things being equal, give students a greater chance to succeed. Study after study shows that students who cannot read well by end of grade three have a far greater chance of becoming high school dropouts. K-3 are the MOST critical grades for creating success for our students.

In VUSD all teachers in the district gave up a full day of pay (a buy back day) which amounts to several hundred dollars per teacher in order to preserve class size reduction for one more year because teachers know class size reduction is incredibly important.

Another huge reason for more staff in VUSD is the huge increase in NON-teaching staff needed when our district converted from year around school where one school was used to house a school and a half full of students to finally passing a school bond (Prop O) which build MANY new schools that each needed a full complement of school secretaries custodians etc. to staff. NON teaching classified staff went up by at least a third.

We, the VUSD teachers aka the certified staff, knew building new schools meant increased costs over the year round system. We knew that money would come from future salary and benefits. Still we organized and we worked to pass the bond. The members of the Vista Teachers Association has been heroic and self sacrificing while the editorial staff of this newspaper writes scathingly critical and fact free attacks on the good teachers of VUSD.

The money to hire the additional NON teaching staff came from our teacher salaries which have fallen in rank in San Diego County from third highest unified district to one of the lowest salaries in the county. Why isn't this drop in relative salary rankings worth a mention in this article? Why doesn’t this paper’s editorial ever mention that all teachers in VUSD gave up a FULL day of pay to preserve class size reduction? Why is the focus of this article on more staff instead of the sacrifices that the teachers and other staff members have made to allow for this? District money is FINITE. More employees does not mean a bigger COST to district taxpayers, it means less in salary and benefits for all the others already employed. Gladly given up to help our students.