The newspaper headlines of the past few years should have readily convinced even the most skeptical that the lot of the teacher is a very difficult one. Each year teachers hope that something will happen to make the next year a better one, but, as the new school year begins, teachers are faced with unprecedented headaches.
We can recall last spring's fight between City Hall and Albany. Mayor Lindsay claimed that, unless the cities were granted an adequate tax package, thousands of public employees would be fired. When an agreement was ultimately reached, the Mayor promised that there would be no layoffs. Any reduction in positions, he said, would take place through attrition - that is, by not hiring new employees to replace those who were leaving. The Mayor should have bee aware that while it may be possible not to replace employees in various city offices and agencies, it is not possible to carry on this practice in the schools. One cannot allow a class whose teacher leaves to remain without a teacher for the rest of the year, nor is it desirable to spend the school year constantly shifting children to new classes.
In spite of the Mayor's promise, thousands upon thousands of city teachers were given notice in mid- June that there would be no jobs for them in September. As the schools open tomorrow, there are still thousands of teachers unsure whether they will be working or not. At this time it seems that the schools will have been singled out for job-slashing, for there have been no noticeable cutbacks in any other essential city service or department. The school mess has been aggravated by the failure of many community boards to supply information to the central board on how many teachers were being retained and how many dismissed. The series of statements from Board of Education officials that "several" thousand teachers "might" be dismissed reflected the Board's lack of information as to whether the number dismissed would be none at all or as many as 6,000. Schools will open tomorrow, and the Board still does not know. This state of affairs is not only bad for teachers; it exposes a chaotic condition in the schools, which is bound to hamper their educational effectiveness. Also, each teacher dismissed means an increase in class size, with fewer adults for students to turn to when they need help.
The Mess Compounded by the Nixon Freeze
As if this problem were not bad enough, teachers have been especially hard hit by the Nixon freeze. Last Wednesday and Thursday 500 members of the American Federation of Teachers lobbied in Washington. On the overall question of the freeze, we took our stand with George Meany and the AFL-CIO that all workers have been harmed by the inequities in the Nixon plan, which favors big corporations. In our meetings with legislators and the Cost of Living Council we stressed the unfairness of denying teachers their regular increments. Unlike most employees who are placed on their full salary after a brief trial or probationary period, teachers reach their full salary over a period of eight to sixteen years. Thus, while the government will allow the apprentice who becomes a journeyman to be paid at the higher journeyman rate, it has so far refused to apply the same principle to the teacher's long apprenticeship, in which each year of satisfactory service and experience leads to a modest promotion. (It is significant that, when economic controls were applies during World War II, teacher salary increments were exempted.)
The Cost of Living Council, in a meeting several days ago with the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers, agreed to consider the AFT position on this issue. Teachers are urged to write their senators and congressmen, demanding equitable treatment and an end to this injustice, and asking them to inform the Cost of Living Council of their support for the exemption of teacher increments. (Sadly, the National Education Association, at a time when teacher unity is needed more than ever, refused to attend the meeting with the Cost of Living Council.)
Despite all this, there are hopeful signs. First, teachers are becoming increasingly aware of the urgency of political action, and throughout the country AFT locals are gearing up for intensive involvement in the electoral process -- particularly for the crucial 1972 elections. At the AFT emergency lobbying conference held in Washington last week, Presidential hopefuls came to address teacher union leaders from all parts of the country. At that conference, in addition to the lobbying which took place, plans were laid for the collection of a million dollar political action fund. Teacher unionists will be making it very clear to our elected officials in government that they cannot afford to ignore the social and educational needs of our nation.
Second, the recent court decision in California that the use of local taxes as a major basis for school support is unconstitutional because of the inequities created, is a major import. It opens the way for a new era of school financing -- the kind of state and federal support for education which the labor movement and teacher unionists have been advocating for years.