Newark Teachers Claim to be ‘Indentured Servants’ Despite $57K Average Salary

“This is not a social justice contract that views public education as a sacred duty that the state and local governments owe to all students, parents, and education workers. This is a cut-throat BUSINESS contract that will bring the forces of the market to public education. It turns education into a business which does nothing to directly address student needs. In fact, many of these provisions will ultimately hurt students.”

“When the Baltimore Teachers Union was initially faced with a merit pay proposal in 2010, they turned it down. But after Randi Weingarten and the AFT went there to convince the Baltimore teachers that this was a good contract, a second vote passed merit pay and the contract provisions. Since then, the number of unsatisfactory evaluations—ineffective—shot up throughout the city, in some schools as high as 60%. Let’s not repeat these same errors. Vote no, organize our union, and demand a truly fair contract that works to serve the interests of all students and education workers in Newark.”

We think the NEW Caucus is actually suggesting that evaluations should be cancelled because too many teachers flunk. The idea is to find teachers who will receive good evaluations meaning they adequately teach kids.

Apparently to these teachers, $57,926 per year is not enough to convince them to work harder to improve miserable student test scores, like a 56 percent proficiency rating in science for 8th graders or a 45 percent proficiency rating in math for the same students, according to GreatSchools.org.

To Newark teachers, academics are just great the way they are. Unacceptable levels of student achievement are not a bother. Spending $28,406 per student to achieve such pitiful results is not a concern.

But holding teachers accountable? That’s “inhumane” and is tantamount to “indentured servitude.”