By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but… At church last Sunday a friend of mine handed me a page from a newspaper that advertises itself as The Official Newspaper for Wadena County, Cities of Menahga, Nimrod, Sebeka, Wolf Lake & School Districts 820 and 821, Minnesota. Now that is a real title.
Our local newspaper only claims to be the Moapa Valley Progress “Your Hometown Newspaper since 1987.”
Did you notice that in the title of that Minnesota newspaper there is a town named Nimrod. I used to think I was insulting people when I called them a Nimrod. Then I found out that Nimrod was in fact a Biblical figure — the great-grandson of Noah. He was a haughty king who declared himself a “mighty one in the earth,” founder of Babylon, a renowned hunter, and he presided over the construction of the Tower of Babel.
Those of you who remember me calling you a nimrod, please go back in your memory bank and substitute the word knucklehead.
Don’t you just hate it when you find out you have been mis-using a word? The other evening my wife and I were discussing what the word insipid meant. I very authoritatively told her it meant arrogance or disdain. I recalled my mother often telling me “to get that insipid look off your face”.
In the good old days (before women were allowed to vote) that would have settled the issue. But not anymore. My wife who has been hanging around the young women in the neighborhood challenged my knowledge. She claimed it meant dull, void of personality.
With great self-assurance, I went online for a definition and found the following: “A lack of qualities that interest or excite you; dull, and void of personality.”
The only thing worse than finding you have been using a word wrong all you life is to find out that your wife is correct.
Actually, the real issue here is as follows. The above mentioned Minnesota newspaper ran the following clip in a column under the title of Jackpine Barbs with the heading of anthropomorphic nouns:
We are all familiar with a herd of cows, a flock of chickens, a school of fish and a gaggle of geese. However, less widely known are a pride of lions, a murder of crows… an exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise, a parliament of owls. Now consider a group of baboons. Baboons are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons? Believe it or not…a congress!… That pretty much explains the things that come out of Washington.
No one asked me but… The last two contract disputes between the Clark County School District and their teachers have gone to binding arbitration. In the most recent settlement, the arbitrator indicated the district has the money to pay the 2,148 teachers who qualified for an educational increment as well as to pay the 11,020 teachers who rate longevity advancement. However, the district argued the students would be better served by hiring 415 more teachers to lower the pupil/teacher ratio.
The arbitrator ruled in favor of the district. He further ruled the $28 million in question must be used to hire those teachers.
According to school district figures, they service 311,000 students. They have 17,568 teachers. That is a pupil/teacher ratio of 17.7 to one. By increasing the teacher ranks by 415 teachers, the pupil/teacher ratio will be reduced to 17.3 to one. The superintendent and school board cut the pay of over 13,000 teachers to reduce the ratio by a 0.4.
Here are some other observations; no value judgments, only observations. When in the previous year the district lost arbitration, they retaliated by eliminating 1000 teaching positions, even though the arbitrator indicated that the district had the money to fund the staff they had. The question I suppose is how do the teachers retaliate against a school board and administrative staff that apparently have no concern for their welfare?
The district will tell you that 89 percent of their budget goes to salaries. They won’t tell you less than half of those salaries go to classroom teachers. Neither will they discuss the large number of people under teacher contracts that never see a classroom.
When the district reports the cost of teachers, they include benefits. When they report the cost of administrators, they report only the salary. The district indicated that the average teacher costs the district $74,000 dollars annually. That would be a little over $50,000 in salary the rest in insurance and retirement. When the district lists the cost of the superintendent at $282,571 the district is only indicating his salary. According to the website Transparent Nevada, Mr. Jones total package is $396,202.
The district will tell you that nearly $40,000 of that comes from other pay. I am not sure what that is but I am forced to believe some foundation has kicked in some cash.
I am not questioning the value of the superintendent; I am only asking that if we are including benefits in the cost of a teacher, let us do so with the administrator.
The use of 300 permanent subs working for just over $16 an hour, with no benefits, has saved the district $15,720,000 this year.
Since there is no longer a salary schedule to which the district must adhere, one must wonder how they are going to recruit these 415 new teachers?
The district has been calling for more money for classrooms construction because they cannot house the teacher and students they presently have. Where are they going to put these new teachers and new classes with 0.4 less students in them?
Will the superintendent and school board ever come to realize that all these new programs they wish to institute will only work to the degree the teachers allow them to work? Will the teachers ever come to understand that fact?
Thought for the week…If we have eight more victories such as these, there shall be nobody left to bring news of them.
-A British politician learning of the “victory” at Bunker Hill
