During the teachers’ union’s disruptive sit-in in May 2023, Rebecca Rothstein, educator and union representative, made the following argument as to why the public schools need to be “fully funded.”
I’ve wanted to be a teacher my entire life…How dilapidated are our school buildings. How hard is it for teachers to pay their bills today. How many unfilled positions are there in every single school…fully fund our budget.
There are so many things wrong with Rothstein’s line of reasoning to the point that she is embarrassing herself. Regarding the first premise, because she wanted to be a teacher her entire life does not obligate us to pay her salary. Is she any good as a teacher? Can she send us the results of her students’ standardized tests? Could she get a job somewhere else? Begging taxpayers for money to live out a dream career is hardly self-respecting—particularly without providing any supporting documentation.
On a less personal note, I imagine that some teachers do have difficulty paying their bills. In contrast, there are some teachers and administrators who are partnered with attorneys, physicians, lobbyists, IT contractors with security clearances, and GS-15 federal employees step 10 making $191,900/year. I highly doubt those teachers are struggling to pay their bills. If the motivation for “fully funded” is to ensure teachers can cover their expenses, then we need to introduce an eligibility requirement that specifies a) the teacher’s total household income and b) a list of qualified expenses. If 10% of the teachers are truly struggling, let’s fully fund them and not the ones taking weekend vacations to watch the aurora borealis in Iceland.
We have heard of the unfilled positions in MCPS, and it comes down to teachers being overworked and student behavior. It’s not clear how “fully funded” will improve student behavior. Furthermore, MoCo 360 reported that during the 2022–2023 school year, 816 of the 1,074 substitute requests received by MCPS went unfilled. For the same school year there were 877 administrative and business operations positions, which means all of those unfilled substitute requests could be filled by one administrator making one appearance in a classroom in an entire year. If those administrators, sucking 20% out of the school’s operating budget, can’t take the time to alleviate the teachers’ workload, then there is no reason to ask the taxpayers for assistance. Just a little bit of sacrifice on the part of the the phalanx of administrators would produce significant goodwill.
Lastly, “fully funded” means we the taxpayers are funding a whole lot of meaningless programs that have nothing to do with education. We funded the nation’s largest fleet of electric school buses, and that has nothing to do with educational outcomes or teachers’ job satisfaction.
In conclusion, Jennifer Martin, her teachers’ union, MCPS, and Rebecca Rothstein do a very good job of manipulating the less fortunate teachers. They plea on behalf of those overworked and underpaid teachers to ensure the underworked and overpaid administrators and union reps take their percentage.
Workers in other industries have gone on strike for employer abuses far less egregious than this.
