And Joe "Yacht Patrol" Manchin thinks extra money from gubmint goes to drugs and booze, when it clearly goes to maintaining the car your kids' teacher lives in.
We need to pay every damn teacher what s/he is worth! It’s criminal that the people we outsource our children to for 12 years are generally paid less than “advertising sales managers” and “personal services providers.”
From what I've heard, a fair amount of teachers end up having to buy some of the necessary materials for students' lessons. That is pathetic, and it should never happen. Especially not in a wealthy, supposedly "advanced" country like the USA. The truth is, while most individual parents and almost all teachers value education, many of our political players apparently don't value it. At least not enough to make sure students have things like pencils and sheets of paper.
I recall one year, way back in the day, when black board chalk was worth its weight in gold.
I was thrilled to find a couple of boxes of way in the back of the closet in my classroom. I was lucky that the previous occupant, a freshly retired guy, was a semihoarder.
What used to kill me was so many in the public joking about teachers taking tablets and pencils home, having a garage full I guess. Why would they think that we'd want those tablets? What was the street value of #2 pencils?
I am/was a product of a 1974 Teachers Strike at Timberlane Regional High, in southern New Hampshire, which at that time was the longest Teacher Strike in the USA (since eclipsed by a Chicago Teachers Strike in the nineties (I believe) . The overwhelming majority of the teachers at the High School walked out on the second week of the 1974 school year and never returned. My distinct recollection is six (6) original teachers remained and about 125 walked out. The school replaced the striking teachers with scabs, many of whom had no teaching background whatsoever. Daily detention notices-which generally ran multiple pages of students, listed luminaries as Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, etc., as detainees. Since virtually no scab teacher new your name, you were free to basically give any alias when apprehended for things like being in the halls after the “late” bell rang for your next class, or for ‘smoking in the boys room’, which I realize in todays environment might result in arrest. The much larger issue was the abandonment of many students who wereI desperately in need of actual assistance. Many just quit. More, like me, received no education. The upheaval clearly ruined many young folks who deserved a chance. I am going to try to attach a NY Times archive story about the strike below. The point is that fifty years later, so little has changed with regards to how little value is afforded one of the noblest professions in our country. Longest Teacher Strike Divides New Hampshire Area
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By John Kifner Special to The New York Times
June 21, 1974
Longest Teacher Strike Divides New Hampshire Area
Credit...The New York Times Archives
See the article in its original context from
June 21, 1974, Page 14Buy Reprints
New York Times subscribers* enjoy full access to TimesMachine—view over 150 years of New York Times journalism, as it originally appeared.
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About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.
PLAISTOW, N. H., June 20—The last day of classes in the Timberlane Regional School System began today as had so many others since last Feb. 26 —with the teachers on a picket line.
In what has become the nation's longest teacher strike the pickets, several wearing yellow or olive rain parkas against the drizzle, circled in the driveway at 7 A.M. as the high school began its shift of double‐session classes.
Red, white and blue bunting decorates the old, white frame buildings around this village's center in honor of its 225th anniversary celebration this weekend, which will include speeches, fireworks, a parade, a chicken barbecue and a beard contest.
But Plaistow and the three smaller towns that make up the Timberlane District—Atkinson, Sandown and Danville—are divided and embittered over the strike.
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The central issue in the strike is the teachers' demand for a single master contract for the district.
Vote of Confidence
When the school board decided that it did not want to negotiate on that issue, it called for a vote of confidence from the school district. In emotion‐packed balloting, the board was supported by 1,780 voters and the teachers by 589.
Behind the struggle here lie several factors — the rapid growth of parts of southern New Hampshire caused by an exodus from metropolitan Boston and other parts of Massachusetts, the drive of teachers unions for growth and power, the revolt of taxpayers against education expenses and this state's conservative political tradition.
The regional school opened in 1966 as a special project, with $250,000 in Federal funds, advisers from the University of New Hampshire and such techniques as “modular scheduling.” When the Federal money ran out three years later, there was a mixed legacy.
The project was widely known in educational circles as an experiment in rural education, but many of the local residents were not enthusiastic about it.
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The school district was set up in response to rapid growth in the region, which is just north of the Massachusetts border above Haverhill.
There are shopping centers on both sides of Route 125, running by Plaistow, the fastest growing part of the region, and land has been cleared for another, Shopper's Village. New tract houses and “ranches” crowd in among the older frame buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries and there is a development of four‐unit apartments.
In 1960, the population of Plaistow was 2,915, only 833 more than a decade earlier. This spring it was 5,431.
The northern towns of Sandown and Danville are still relatively isolated and poor. Their working people have been against the striking teachers. Some mothers from these towns visited the teachers' picket lines carrying tape recorders. They said that they had heard obscenities.
Atkinson, where the growth has brought affluence, has indicated the strongest support for the strike, the teachers say.
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Many people have moved here from Massachusetts, seeking country living and in many cases lower taxes. New Hampshire has neither a state income tax nor a sales tax. However, it ranks 50th in state aid to education and local property taxes, which support the schools, have been going up rapidly.
When the one‐story brick high school opened in 1966, there were 1,800 students in the district, 700 of them in junior and senior high schools. Now, there are 2,800 students, 1,500 in junior and senior highs.
For four years, a bond issue for a new junior high school failed to get a two‐thirds vote at the annual school meeting. At last year's meeting, supporters of the bond issue stayed late, demanded reconsideration and passed the $1‐million bond proposal.
The “midnight vote” angered conservatives and opponents of spending, who formed a group called the Timberlane Civic Association to “watchdog” the School Board.
Principle Remains
Joe McKenna, a young social studies teacher acting as spokesman for the teachers group, affiliated with the National Education Association, said that the most controversial part of the contract the teachers had sought concerned binding arbitration and a guarantee of “academic freedom.” These were set aside in hopes of reaching an agreement, he said, and a pay scale established, but the principle of the master contract remains at issue.
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The school has been kept open by substitute teachers. Passions have run high, with the pickets screaming “scab” and scum” as the replacements drive into the parking lot. The union says that 104 of the 150 teachers went out; the administration puts the figure at 97.
Many of the students staged a walkout in the early spring in hopes of ending the strike. The senior class year book makes no mention of the strike although the faculty pictures show the strikers rather than the substitutes.
Rober Crompton, the school superintendent, said that the School Board reflected the conservatism of the area, and that the difficulties had been compounded by resentment over rising property taxes.
“From 1955 to 1965, all schools had to do was ask for something, and we'd get it,” he said. “Now, there's been a revolt of the taxpayers.”
He said that as far as the school board was concerned, the issue was settled, and that he was interviewing new teachers for next fall. He said that he had 1,200 applications for 85 positions and added: “This is an age of plenty as far as teacher supply is concerned.”
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People think that anyone with the necessary grasp of subject matter can teach. They don't understand that being able to impart knowledge in such a way as it's understood and assimilated is just as much as skill as throwing a ball farther or running faster than everybody else.
If only we placed 10% of the value on the future of our human race as we do on sports- we might not be under threat of an authoritarian being elected as the most powerful human on the planet
The extreme right-wingers in this country won't be satisfied until every American is a hopeless idiot. That's their "base." Destroying public education is a big step towards the achievement of their objective.
Yes. They're paid a pittance and then told they should be thankful because it's such a fine profession, and shame on them for wanting to make a living and have a life. Of course, if they could expertly hit, catch, toss, kick, whack, or otherwise deal skillfully with a spherical or oval object of some sort, they would make MILLIONS! Or again, if they could write stylishly vapid songs about their umpteenth romantic breakup, they'd also end up on the most fashionable side of Easy Street. Our culture surely has its priorities set right.
California - yes, I know, it's California, not Michigan, but hear me out - just enacted a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers.
So, someone working the fryer at McDonalds for a standard 40hr work week, will end up with an annual salary that is almost exactly 10% higher than that of a Flint teacher.
I went to junior high and high school in Flint. I am now a successful professional scientist thanks to dedicated Flint teachers. It was hard enough then. It breaks my heart to think what it is like now.
Making striking illegal is itself illegal. No one can either legally or morally tell people that they are not allowed to bargain for the conditions of their work. It might be illegal on paper. But that doesn't mean that you don't strike. No one has the right to make striking illegal.
We are finding out just how uneducated a nation can be and still survive. Meanwhile, western Europe continues to take care of its people and education. We are so stupid.
does it never dawn on these chowderheads that educated citizens tends to earn more & as a result pay more in taxes … it’s a virtuous cycle that has pushed us forward from the past until now …
I had a PTO member running for school board less than 10 years ago tell me she had never made more than $10/hr and she didn’t think the teachers should be paid so much. So, yeah. You are correct.
JFC!!! What more will Flint have to endure? I thought the teachers had overcome. They may yet.
So very sad!
I am retiring after 30 years teaching, 18 of it special ed. This makes me feel guilty.
And Joe "Yacht Patrol" Manchin thinks extra money from gubmint goes to drugs and booze, when it clearly goes to maintaining the car your kids' teacher lives in.
We need to pay every damn teacher what s/he is worth! It’s criminal that the people we outsource our children to for 12 years are generally paid less than “advertising sales managers” and “personal services providers.”
Ta, Robyn. Teachers are among the most important members of society. They should be treasured, not trashed.
Disgraceful. It's illegal for teachers to strike in NYC also, but we voted to authorize one under Bloomberg and he backed down.
For the math impaired, 38k is just over $18/hour based on full time employment.
(And anyone who talks about teachers getting summer off should be banned)
The jobs that teachers work in the summer withhold Social Security, which of course teachers don't receive.
I'm in the same boat. After years of self employment I'm working for the state. Sucks to not get the SSI I paid for so lavishly!
The teachers should have been football stars and the damaged kids should have had rich fathers. Geez
From what I've heard, a fair amount of teachers end up having to buy some of the necessary materials for students' lessons. That is pathetic, and it should never happen. Especially not in a wealthy, supposedly "advanced" country like the USA. The truth is, while most individual parents and almost all teachers value education, many of our political players apparently don't value it. At least not enough to make sure students have things like pencils and sheets of paper.
I recall one year, way back in the day, when black board chalk was worth its weight in gold.
I was thrilled to find a couple of boxes of way in the back of the closet in my classroom. I was lucky that the previous occupant, a freshly retired guy, was a semihoarder.
What used to kill me was so many in the public joking about teachers taking tablets and pencils home, having a garage full I guess. Why would they think that we'd want those tablets? What was the street value of #2 pencils?
I remember chalk, probably have white lung disease.
I liked the way you could clack and punctuate with it on the blackboard! Markers are just not the same.
Good point, I've even done the never assume bit from Animal House for my kids.
Been that way for 30 years
I am/was a product of a 1974 Teachers Strike at Timberlane Regional High, in southern New Hampshire, which at that time was the longest Teacher Strike in the USA (since eclipsed by a Chicago Teachers Strike in the nineties (I believe) . The overwhelming majority of the teachers at the High School walked out on the second week of the 1974 school year and never returned. My distinct recollection is six (6) original teachers remained and about 125 walked out. The school replaced the striking teachers with scabs, many of whom had no teaching background whatsoever. Daily detention notices-which generally ran multiple pages of students, listed luminaries as Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, etc., as detainees. Since virtually no scab teacher new your name, you were free to basically give any alias when apprehended for things like being in the halls after the “late” bell rang for your next class, or for ‘smoking in the boys room’, which I realize in todays environment might result in arrest. The much larger issue was the abandonment of many students who wereI desperately in need of actual assistance. Many just quit. More, like me, received no education. The upheaval clearly ruined many young folks who deserved a chance. I am going to try to attach a NY Times archive story about the strike below. The point is that fifty years later, so little has changed with regards to how little value is afforded one of the noblest professions in our country. Longest Teacher Strike Divides New Hampshire Area
Share full article
By John Kifner Special to The New York Times
June 21, 1974
Longest Teacher Strike Divides New Hampshire Area
Credit...The New York Times Archives
See the article in its original context from
June 21, 1974, Page 14Buy Reprints
New York Times subscribers* enjoy full access to TimesMachine—view over 150 years of New York Times journalism, as it originally appeared.
SUBSCRIBE
*Does not include Crossword-only or Cooking-only subscribers.
About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.
PLAISTOW, N. H., June 20—The last day of classes in the Timberlane Regional School System began today as had so many others since last Feb. 26 —with the teachers on a picket line.
In what has become the nation's longest teacher strike the pickets, several wearing yellow or olive rain parkas against the drizzle, circled in the driveway at 7 A.M. as the high school began its shift of double‐session classes.
Red, white and blue bunting decorates the old, white frame buildings around this village's center in honor of its 225th anniversary celebration this weekend, which will include speeches, fireworks, a parade, a chicken barbecue and a beard contest.
But Plaistow and the three smaller towns that make up the Timberlane District—Atkinson, Sandown and Danville—are divided and embittered over the strike.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The central issue in the strike is the teachers' demand for a single master contract for the district.
Vote of Confidence
When the school board decided that it did not want to negotiate on that issue, it called for a vote of confidence from the school district. In emotion‐packed balloting, the board was supported by 1,780 voters and the teachers by 589.
Behind the struggle here lie several factors — the rapid growth of parts of southern New Hampshire caused by an exodus from metropolitan Boston and other parts of Massachusetts, the drive of teachers unions for growth and power, the revolt of taxpayers against education expenses and this state's conservative political tradition.
The regional school opened in 1966 as a special project, with $250,000 in Federal funds, advisers from the University of New Hampshire and such techniques as “modular scheduling.” When the Federal money ran out three years later, there was a mixed legacy.
The project was widely known in educational circles as an experiment in rural education, but many of the local residents were not enthusiastic about it.
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How Does a Tiny Mountain Town, Burned to the Ground, Come Back?
‘Age Is Not a Problem’
Subterranean ‘Baby Dragons’ Are Revealed to Sneak to the Surface
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ADVERTISEMENT
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The school district was set up in response to rapid growth in the region, which is just north of the Massachusetts border above Haverhill.
There are shopping centers on both sides of Route 125, running by Plaistow, the fastest growing part of the region, and land has been cleared for another, Shopper's Village. New tract houses and “ranches” crowd in among the older frame buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries and there is a development of four‐unit apartments.
In 1960, the population of Plaistow was 2,915, only 833 more than a decade earlier. This spring it was 5,431.
The northern towns of Sandown and Danville are still relatively isolated and poor. Their working people have been against the striking teachers. Some mothers from these towns visited the teachers' picket lines carrying tape recorders. They said that they had heard obscenities.
Atkinson, where the growth has brought affluence, has indicated the strongest support for the strike, the teachers say.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Many people have moved here from Massachusetts, seeking country living and in many cases lower taxes. New Hampshire has neither a state income tax nor a sales tax. However, it ranks 50th in state aid to education and local property taxes, which support the schools, have been going up rapidly.
When the one‐story brick high school opened in 1966, there were 1,800 students in the district, 700 of them in junior and senior high schools. Now, there are 2,800 students, 1,500 in junior and senior highs.
For four years, a bond issue for a new junior high school failed to get a two‐thirds vote at the annual school meeting. At last year's meeting, supporters of the bond issue stayed late, demanded reconsideration and passed the $1‐million bond proposal.
The “midnight vote” angered conservatives and opponents of spending, who formed a group called the Timberlane Civic Association to “watchdog” the School Board.
Principle Remains
Joe McKenna, a young social studies teacher acting as spokesman for the teachers group, affiliated with the National Education Association, said that the most controversial part of the contract the teachers had sought concerned binding arbitration and a guarantee of “academic freedom.” These were set aside in hopes of reaching an agreement, he said, and a pay scale established, but the principle of the master contract remains at issue.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The school has been kept open by substitute teachers. Passions have run high, with the pickets screaming “scab” and scum” as the replacements drive into the parking lot. The union says that 104 of the 150 teachers went out; the administration puts the figure at 97.
Many of the students staged a walkout in the early spring in hopes of ending the strike. The senior class year book makes no mention of the strike although the faculty pictures show the strikers rather than the substitutes.
Rober Crompton, the school superintendent, said that the School Board reflected the conservatism of the area, and that the difficulties had been compounded by resentment over rising property taxes.
“From 1955 to 1965, all schools had to do was ask for something, and we'd get it,” he said. “Now, there's been a revolt of the taxpayers.”
He said that as far as the school board was concerned, the issue was settled, and that he was interviewing new teachers for next fall. He said that he had 1,200 applications for 85 positions and added: “This is an age of plenty as far as teacher supply is concerned.”
SINCE 1877, FRESH AIR FUND!
Share full article
Related Content
Editors’ Picks
‘Saturday Night Live’ Feasts on the Bounty of the State of the Union
Scarlett Johansson as Senator Katie Britt. “Tonight,” she said, “I’ll be auditioning for the part of scary mom.”
NBC Universal, via YouTube
‘Age Is Not a Problem’
MONIC
Pamela Anderson Still Isn’t Wearing Makeup
Pamela Anderson described her wardrobe for a new Re/Done campaign as “clothes that in the ’90s I would have worn to the grocery store.”
Re/Done
People think that anyone with the necessary grasp of subject matter can teach. They don't understand that being able to impart knowledge in such a way as it's understood and assimilated is just as much as skill as throwing a ball farther or running faster than everybody else.
I am a sped guy, and many of the gen ed teachers in my building think they teach English, history, math, when they are really teaching KIDS.
If only we placed 10% of the value on the future of our human race as we do on sports- we might not be under threat of an authoritarian being elected as the most powerful human on the planet
Yeah, well, Jimmy Page SHOULD have had detention. Once, he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Unfortunately it was NOT Eric Crapton...
Back then you would get, “detention for life” for that offense
The extreme right-wingers in this country won't be satisfied until every American is a hopeless idiot. That's their "base." Destroying public education is a big step towards the achievement of their objective.
Yes, I believe it is Item # 3 on the Chamber of Commerce’ Long Term Goal Sheet - Right after:
1. Eliminate all Taxation and
2. Prohibit Minority Owned Business
then comes
3. Defund Public Education
4. Subsidize Christian Education
$38,000! For K-12 education? That is an insult, especially given how much a Master's in Education would cost nowadays.
Yes. They're paid a pittance and then told they should be thankful because it's such a fine profession, and shame on them for wanting to make a living and have a life. Of course, if they could expertly hit, catch, toss, kick, whack, or otherwise deal skillfully with a spherical or oval object of some sort, they would make MILLIONS! Or again, if they could write stylishly vapid songs about their umpteenth romantic breakup, they'd also end up on the most fashionable side of Easy Street. Our culture surely has its priorities set right.
California - yes, I know, it's California, not Michigan, but hear me out - just enacted a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers.
So, someone working the fryer at McDonalds for a standard 40hr work week, will end up with an annual salary that is almost exactly 10% higher than that of a Flint teacher.
The cost of living is WAY lower in Michigan compared with Cali.
Hence ‘yes, I know it’s California, not Michigan, but hear me out’.
And they don't have to grade papers, either. Dang! Some people have all the luck.
I went to junior high and high school in Flint. I am now a successful professional scientist thanks to dedicated Flint teachers. It was hard enough then. It breaks my heart to think what it is like now.
Making striking illegal is itself illegal. No one can either legally or morally tell people that they are not allowed to bargain for the conditions of their work. It might be illegal on paper. But that doesn't mean that you don't strike. No one has the right to make striking illegal.
Generally agree, but I do not believe cops should be allowed to strike or bargain over working conditions.
Ansolutely. I'm with Hamilton Nolan on this one
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/13/police-unions-afl-cio-labor-movement
We are finding out just how uneducated a nation can be and still survive. Meanwhile, western Europe continues to take care of its people and education. We are so stupid.
does it never dawn on these chowderheads that educated citizens tends to earn more & as a result pay more in taxes … it’s a virtuous cycle that has pushed us forward from the past until now …
Fox viewer - “38000? Damn elitists”
I had a PTO member running for school board less than 10 years ago tell me she had never made more than $10/hr and she didn’t think the teachers should be paid so much. So, yeah. You are correct.
Flint teachers must have been making that much decades ago. Have they never had a raise?