I love the archive feature of www.gilroydispatch.com. I no
longer have to keep moldering piles of newspapers around against
the day I may need to reference a fact or editorial.
I love the archive feature of www.gilroydispatch.com. I no longer have to keep moldering piles of newspapers around against the day I may need to reference a fact or editorial.
For example, when Mr. Tony Weiler’s vitriol-laced hit piece appeared in Wednesday’s Dispatch, I didn’t have to wonder idly if perhaps he had some justice or logic in his rant. I simply logged on and compared what The Dispatch editorial of March 19 actually said with what Mr. Weiler alleged it said.
So, Mr. Weiler, you are a San Jose teacher? Do sarcasm and name-calling serve you well in the classroom?
The original editorial – go ahead, dear reader, look it up – mildly makes the point that since Gilroy Unified must trim $1.8 million from its budget this year, it would behoove us to spare classroom teachers and make cuts at the administration level. It also suggests delaying textbook purchases one year.
Mr. Weiler attacks like a junkyard dog; correction, like an illiterate junkyard dog. “You imply school boards are lazy and myopic …”
Actually, Mr. Weiler, the article did not imply, but stated that school boards are typically myopic. It neither stated nor implied that they are lazy. Doesn’t San Jose require that its teachers be able to read?
Mr. Weiler goes on to complain, without offering any data to support his allegation, that school boards have already cut all of the waste out of the budget.
I grant that classrooms are no longer provided with Kleenex and that janitors no longer seem competent to fix vandalized drinking fountains. But a perusal of the GUSD budget for 2002 will demonstrate that 45 percent of the district’s certificated employees are not classroom teachers.
Who are these people who hold teaching certificates but are not classroom teachers? They are administrators. Some administer programs. Some administer schools. Some work in the district office.
Now, The Dispatch’s editorial was mild-mannered and sweet: It suggested merely that these administrators take a 15 percent pay cut, so that classroom teachers will not be impacted, and thus children’s education will not be adversely affected during this downturn.
I’m not as nice as The Dispatch. GUSD is ridiculously top-heavy. I suggest we keep the superintendent and one secretary at the district office, and one principal and one secretary per school, and pink slip the rest. We’ll have plenty of money left for classroom teachers, perhaps even enough for raises and maybe even enough for Kleenex.
Mr. Weiler says no one knows how to make merit pay work. I do, Mr. Weiler; test score improvement! If Mrs. A’s class’s average API was a 6 the year before she gets them, and they improve to a 7 or 8 under her tutelage, while Mr. W’s students sink from a 6 to a 4, then she gets the merit pay. Simple enough, isn’t it?
Mr. Weiler objects to the use of the term tenure, while stating that permanent teachers, i.e. teachers who have worked for a certain number of years, can only be dismissed “for cause.” A rose by any other name, Mr. Weiler …
Mr. Weiler complains about administrators jacking principals around, then praises them for allowing teachers to do their work. Make up your mind, Mr. Weiler. Better yet, define your terms.
Mr. Weiler goes ballistic at the idea that we might consider abolishing the teacher’s union. He offers no coherent arguments, merely predicts dire consequences. It’s a classic ad baculum fallacy, an appeal to the stick. In fact, I would recommend the whole letter to English teachers as an example of bad paragraphing, worse logic, and wholesale ad hominem attack. Too bad it was written by a teacher.
The Dispatch editorial referred to a sense of injustice, specifically that classroom teachers should not be laid off while bundles are spent on police stations and prisons. Mr. Weiler takes that phrase “sense of injustice” completely out of context, and raves that people don’t pay enough taxes.
Mr. Weiler, The Dispatch editorial board is your ally. They want to spare classroom teachers. They supported Measure I and even its predecessor, Measure D. And you kick them in the teeth! Why don’t you save your spleen for your ideological opponents, Mr. Weiler? Me, for example.
