Ok, I've decided that the bad mood and horrible days I've had lately are due to the weather. It's soooo hot and dry here. I saw a picture yesterday that said, "Satan called. He wants his weather back!" I did laugh at that one, but I do believe that he's actually starting to send his crop to Oklahoma because it's more miserable here now than there! Hahaha!
However, when I read this today, I felt the blood begin to boil and felt a blog post coming on. I only HOPE that with this issue, it's just the weather!
Lately, I've been reading about the budget cuts being made, and all the programs being dropped just so states and the nation can do whatever it is that they need to. And while this is normal stuff and just part of an otherwise normal process, the American people are starting to notice.
A few weeks ago, it became clear that our State Superintendent, the woman in charge of all of education in Oklahoma, the one with the dental degree and not the highly qualified teaching degree the rest of us HAVE to have just to teach in the U.S., yet the state education Czar has no need for such a bothersome thing, decided to cut the stipends paid to nationally certified teachers. (see article here - http://okea.org/about-oea/media-center/state-department-delivers-fatal-blow-to-teacher-incentive-program.) The money that was promised to them and an actual effort to keep this state's teachers in Oklahoma and not go to Texas or Kansas where they actually pay their teachers, so long as they had it available (which they do have available, she just decided to use it elsewhere.) The worst thing about this is that she was the deciding vote - the tie breaker - in this decision. OUR OKLAHOMA EDUCATION LEADER decided to spit on those teachers who took the time to better themselves!
This was a big blow to those teachers because, despite being so good at their jobs, they need that money every bit as much as do the rest of us. They put in nearly 3 years of extremely difficult work and are now told, "So? Deal with it! We're in a budget crunch! Come on, make the sacrifice for your school and the children!" [insert slap in face here] Its great TEACHERS can sacrifice for children - we have for years and don't complain when doing so. How about someone else take a turn at sacrificing "for the children?" Like our State Superintendent and her staff, for starters? The National Board stipend was just a little recognition that these teachers duly deserve. They worked hard for it! (I'm in the middle of the process myself, though I'm questioning now if I should complete it. For some reason, it doesn't seem worth it now since I've gotten the educational benefit from it. Not for just 4 little letters after my name since there's no other benefit outside of personal growth anymore from it.)
Anyway, in a second strike, she got rid of funding for literacy programs that we teachers have used to help us reach the ridiculous goals these very same politicians/non educators have placed on us and our students. (Found here http://newsok.com/state-elementary-school-reading-program-unfunded-for-first-time-in-13-years/article/3585357#ixzz1S67LHQGb.) This is after all the hoopla she made when she first took office that made so many people want to impeach her, if that's even possible. All for a POSSIBLE savings of nearly 6 million dollars. Is that all? Seriously? Doesn't seem worth it in the big picture.
Now, today, I read that Obama has said that if Congress doesn't vote to allow the debt ceiling to be raised, he's can't guarantee that Social Security checks will be able to go out to the American People. (Found here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/12/obama-social-security-checks-debt-ceiling_n_895831.html.)Seriously? The very people that put him and the legislators in office are being told they won't get paid? These people NEED their checks! Where is the legislator threat of not getting paid? These AMERICAN citizens don't get to live in a tax funded white house with security fences and have a cook making them and their families meals for them. They don't have chauffeurs, and actually have to pay the high cost for gasoline in the car they hope will make it through the day. They don't get the option of not worrying about their utility bills and if they paid them correctly this month. They have doctors bills to pay because they use the doctor and go to the hospital MORE than those in office. They don't have a salary greater than $250,000.00 a year, then $150,000.00 for the rest of their lives AFTER they leave office. Yet, the one person in the nation that gets all of this is telling them that their very lives are in danger because they can't find the money (outside of their own paychecks, that is).
People, we have to wake up! We HAVE to put a stop to the harassment our own, voted for, politicians are doing to us. We HAVE to stop being held for ransom!
Ok, now you're saying I'm being sensationalist. Maybe, but let's take a look at Oklahoma for now. Let's see. Teachers in Oklahoma have one of the LOWEST salaries for teachers in America. Like the bottom 5 is what I remember (I may be wrong, but I'm close.) It's documented, it's valid and everyone knows this. Yet, according to a news article (Found here http://www.newson6.com/story/15081983/tonight-at-10-oklahoma-lawmakers-among-best-paid-in-nation) I read yesterday, our legislators and leaders in this state have one of the HIGHEST salaries in America - somewhere in the TOP 15 in the nation. For about 16 weeks of work (for the record, that's about half the number of weeks teachers work - on the clock.) Wow, big gap, isn't it? Yet, to figure out the budget, they are cutting money from necessary programs that are actually, well, necessary! Now, if I were to dig deeper, I'm sure money has been cut from the police and fire department budget, the transportation department and so on, but I don't really pay that much attention to that, so I stick with what I know, which is education.
You might say, yeah, but teachers have awesome benefits! (Excuse me, I actually just spit my drink on my monitor from laughing when I read what I just wrote...) No, not really. Our insurance isn't cheaper - in fact, I happen to know first hand that for the EXACT SAME insurance with the EXACT SAME benefits, employees of the state district attorneys insurance is HALF the cost of ours. So even within our own state jobs there is inequality. Days off? Believe it or not, we don't actually get paid for those - our salary is actually based on 185 days of work, over approximately 9 months (throw in Christmas break, Thanksgiving Break, Easter Break, Spring Break and Fall Break, then the normal holidays most people get like Labor Day and you come up with the 9 month time span), they just split our salary into 12 payments for us. You can argue that if we worked every day, our salary would be double. Yes, but we don't work at school every day, do we? Moot point... Easier hours? Really? Come with me and spend some of my "easier" hours with me. Physically easier, possibly yes. Mentally? Let's just say there's a reason so many teachers file nervous and mental claims with their insurance companies at the end of the year. It isn't because their brains are working in tip top fashion by the end of the school year!
Now, to be fair, let's look at legislator benefits...this is all according to the news article for 4-5 months work, btw.
The STARTING salary for a legislator in 2011 in Oklahoma is around $38,000.00. (That's more than I make a year, after 9 years of teaching.) Not to mention the BONUSES of $12,000.00 - $17,000.00 the leadership of the legislature get. (Bonuses? Really? For what? Dragging unnecessary bills through the committees and getting them passed? Voting themselves raises every year? Wow. We teachers here in Woodward got a bonus of $500.00 one year. Once. And none of us have a salary higher than the state step mandated to us, not counting stipends, military experience, etc.) Reading that article, there are actually states around us that their legislators get LESS than 10,000.00, and one that doesn't even have a salary!
This is just hearsay, but I'd LOVE to find out about it. Golden umbrella insurance, not paid by them but by us, the citizens of the state. And it covers not just them but their families. For the rest of their lives. My insurance was so expensive, I couldn't afford to put my own kids on it and this is with me taking the least expensive choice. Nice, huh?
Back to information from the article. Daily stipends of around $148.00. Daily, as in EVERY DAY. If they aren't staying in a place in the city that is probably paid by, yup, us! PLUS mileage! These two benefits are for those that live more than 50 miles away. 148 per day PLUS mileage? WOW! Just for 16 weeks, the stipend alone is over 9 thousand bucks per person. Add mileage on top of that, and you have one heck of a benefit plan there. (Let's see, we teachers in this district aren't allowed to take our own vehicles on required workshop trips anymore, thus saving our school, I think, around 60 cents a mile, but we do get our meals reimbursed so long as they aren't more than 20.00. We also aren't allowed to spend the night unless it's a multiple day workshop - we have to go down early that morning and come back that night.) Trust me, I'm not blaming our school at all. They're doing what they have to just to survive. I'm just comparing is all.
I'm sure there are more things I could rant about. These legislators seem to get the best of the best in Oklahoma. But, these very same legislators have decided the BEST place to cut money is from ESSENTIAL programs used by teachers, police, fire fighters, transportation people, doctors, etc. Yet, I don't see a single one of them saying, "We need to cut our truly excessive salary and benefit package - the people of Oklahoma are suffering! We found 6 million in Education by taking away a teacher's benefits and hurting our children by taking away their programs. We could have done that with our own salaries! It's not right we live in luxury while they are being threatened daily." Don't really see this happening, do you?
This was just from our state alone - can you imagine what it's like in Washington? No wonder people want to be politicians!
What's wrong with us people? We actually VOTED to put these people in office. When will America stop being apathetic and take back our country? Remember that part in the Declaration of Independence? We make our children memorize it at school...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Key word: Consent. They have to have OUR permission, not the other way around.
I really hope it's the weather because, holy smokes, it's getting hot in Oklahoma!
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