Initially, this report has nothing to do with Billerica. However, if you read on, you will see that it surely does connect to Billerica, and does so in a way that does not put teachers and school executives in a favorable light. The story involves Central Falls High School, a publicly financed institution intended to serve one of the poorest populations in the State. It is a school that has failed its students miserably, graduating functional illiterates in high numbers, and even with that, graduating less than 52% of students overall:

A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system.

Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers’ union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.

The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000. This exemplifies a nationwide trend in which public sector workers make far more than their private-sector counterparts (with better benefits).

How does this tie into Billerica? Consider this:

As you know, Billerica residents just voted to approve a debt exclusion override and to put the burden for paying extra taxes on their own backs. They did so to give children a safe and stable building to learn in, and teachers a safe and stable building to teach in. We are now committed to spending millions of dollars to replace Parker Elementary School, a school that was never maintained, that had moldy and rotting floor boards, inoperable safety equipment and had never experienced a modernization upgrade throughout its history because School Committee members and school administrators never saw a tax dollar that they couldn’t spend on “stuff” over necessitity.

Instead, every spare dime given to the schools went to teacher wants under the guise of student needs. When class sizes were “too high” more teachers were hired. When teachers felt unappreciated they were given step increases and benefits far beyond the norm in the private sector. With tenure, they get guaranteed life-time jobs, but they are unlove, unappreciated and underpaid. Just ask them!

They get plush retirement and health care plans when compared to those granted to our military men and women who eat, sleep and leave body parts and a great deal of their humanity in the desert, thousands of miles from home and from loved ones. The difference is, that for the most part, this latter group never complains, while the former never shuts up. The latter groups stands with pride, while the former group gathers in group hugs sniveling and caturwaling to each other over how unfair life as a working person is.

There is talk, as is usual during any budget season, that the 2011 budget will not have enough money to give teachers the things thought they would get. The facts are, we are in a down economy that worsens with every dollar wasted in attempting to create jobs in the public sector instead of investing into the much more economically competitive and productive private sector which generates more in return than what is spent in output.

The taxpayers have already demonstrated, clearly, that they want good schools and a good education for their children who are forced to attend publicly financed school. These kids attend under force (as demonstrated by the need for a truant officer) as a result of having paid too much in taxes to be able to afford private schools. The tax burden for most has stripped away the liberty of choice and replaced it with enslavement; underachievement that comes with systemic boredom and the inefficiency of uninspired motivation which blossoms from self-absorbed, narcissistic teachers who earn whether they produce or not.

For the past several decades, the majority of students in Billerica have gone to run down building full of debris and unseen, unattended to health hazards to study under teachers who are never satisfied with what they are given. Not only are they not satisfied with what they are given, they refuse to care for those very same things.

In spite of a vote to replace the Parker with a very good building that has lots of room for expansion if needed, we have a group of teachers already asking permission to sustain the infrastructural neglect that led us to this most recent, costly point in Billerica’s educational history. They now want to continue using money set aside in the budget for maintenance to, instead, pay for more teachers. If they are granted more teachers, then they will want more supplies, if they are given more supplies, they will want higher wages, if they are given higher wages, they will want premium benefits…it never stops and the maintenance never gets accomplished. One by one, we are replacing multi-million dollar buildings prematurely due to plain old neglect.

Mary Anne Durand, a math teacher at Billerica Memorial High School and a Town Meeting member, questioned the prudence of adding money for capital projects to the budget when teaching jobs are being cut.

“I understand we’re in need of capital improvements, but I hate that there has to be a choice between teaching positions and capital improvements.”

Well, Mary Ann Durand, we hate having to choose between layoffs and small business survival, but we have no choice. We hate having to choose between a diner of macaroni and cheese or beans and corn because there are insufficient funds at home to pay for meat, fish or other rich protein sources. But, we have to. Can you tell me why as a teacher who has a job that pays very well, we should make an exception for you? There are people from all walks of live and all income levels taking pay and benefit cuts just to keep their jobs – why aren’t you?

Serio’s proposed budget of $50.1 million is $271,000 more than the current fiscal year’s budget. Although the budget does not contain annual pay raises for employees, it does include an additional $900,000 in previously negotiated step raises

Tell me, Ms. Durand, how many teacher or teaching assistant jobs would $900,000.00 or 9/10ths of 1 million dollars pay for in 2011? Do you want help or not? How about joining the private sector in dealing with the real world instead of the world of life time job guarantees (tenure) and step increases no matter the ferocity of the economy in devouring the very families and children you claim to serve? How about foregoing that step increase and convincing your peers to do the same? Besides helping the town to get a mediocre overall MCAS score, what are you willing to do to help yourself and to say thank you to the taxpayers who just voted to sacrifice on behalf of yourself and your fellow teachers?

And now we come to Ms. Sands, Principle of the Locke Middle School and Patricia Tobin, principle of the Dutile School:

Tracy Sands, principal of the Locke Middle School, and Patricia Tobin, principal of the Dutile Elementary School, raised concerns that fewer teachers will lead to more students per classroom.

“Any of my teachers will say large classes become crowd control,” Sands said.

And as a leader, what will you retort, Ms. Sands? Are you implying that your students come from such bad families that they are incapable of being controlled sufficiently to teach classes? Are you implying that the parents of wayward children will not sufficiently address inappropriate behavior, or that you lack the tools needed to remediate and remove unruly children from class as a disciplinary measure to restore and maintain order?

Are you implying that you, your peers and those you supervise and lead by example can’t handle the addition of a few more children into a class room? Were you nurses, one would have to wonder how well you would perform in a MASH unit with a plethora of myriad injuries suddenly showing up at your door step. So, the question is, as an educator, are you a professional who is passionate about her work, or are you here to earn a check and leave? I have my suspicions, but I’ll leave the ultimate opinion up to the reader.

Well, Ms. Principles…let me ask each of you this – how hard have you tried to get the union to forego the pending step increase to finance solving your own problems? Why didn’t you spend money to maintain the school buildings during the good economic years? How could you let children from the Marshall Middle School and the Hajjar and lord only knows where else, attend class without working fire alarms? When was the last time anyone inspected your fire extinguishers or made sure you were conducting fire drills and monitoring them for compliance and for systemic failures?

If this is the best you can do in a leadership role, might I suggest that you pack your trash, clean out your desks and get the hell out of my town? And, please, feel free to take with you any and all of your disgruntled peers and underlings. You are simply not good enough to teach here and you are definitely not leaders. Both of you and any other town officer who thinks and acts as both of you do ought to hand their heads in shame.

Just for the record, how may of you on the School Committee or in the Executive branch of school governance support these contentions and positions. I’d really like to know before the next election, and the one after that, and the one that follows that one to help me make the right choice with my vote.

Perhaps, Billerica should follow the example of Central Falls – fire them all, but do so throughout the town!