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See below for the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers' response regarding the Cincinnati Enquirer's editorial on the Cincinnati school levy. Please leave a comment and make your voice heard!
CFT Responds to Enquirer Editorial
Without ever having a dialog with the teachers of Cincinnati Public Schools, the Enquirer based its opposition to the March School Levy on teacher pay and district performance. The editorial staff asserted that high teacher salaries created the financial crisis of the district, making this an “unwinnable battle to control its budget.”
The reality of the situation is that an unconstitutional and unfair state funding system drives the financial crisis of every public school system in the state of Ohio, but especially urban districts like CPS. This funding system denies inflationary increases in revenues and forces every Ohio school district to beg for support from property owners every four years or face insolvency—making every school district appear that it cannot manage its money. Cincinnati Public Schools stretched our funding formula twice as far as other districts by reducing teachers, staff, and services to the point it can no longer do this without out permanent damage to the educational programs serving students.
Since 2004 nearly 1000 teaching positions (30% of all teachers) and 300 staff positions disappeared from our schools while only 15% of the students in the district moved to school district funded charter and voucher schools. The loss of these students will cost Cincinnati Public Schools and the tax-payers approximately $73 million next year in the form of tuition, transportation and other services; yet their academic performance will be no better and in most all cases far worse than if they stayed in CPS schools. The Enquirer demands performance from the public schools but turns a blind eye to the failures of the charter and voucher alternatives. The editorial board’s demand and concern for achievement and school performance rings rather hollow when viewed in this light.
Since the Enquirer attacked teacher pay as the real source of the district’s financial problems it is important to explore the issue. Urban education is among the most difficult and stressful of careers in our country. People who choose to teach here do so because of a commitment to children coming from a desire to make a difference in this world. Urban educators are a special breed. They work long hours—often 10 hours a day and sometimes 12 hours when there are special events and huge homework assignments to grade. Teachers also engage in continual professional development in order to maintain their various licenses and are now required to earn at least a Masters Degree. A salary of $60,000 (average CPS teacher salary) would insult similarly trained professionals in private industry. Nurses with a two-year Associates Degree earn more than a Masters level teacher in his or her first year in Cincinnati Public Schools. They will continue to earn more than teachers throughout their careers.
It is true that CPS teachers earn a little more than some of our suburban counter-parts, but it is also true that urban students present additional challenges. Further, CPS teachers are among the most highly trained teachers in the state of Ohio. CPS has more National Board Certified teachers than any school district in Ohio. Even though the Enquirer refuses to acknowledge it, CPS also has many performance pay structures. Through negotiations the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers and the district created one of the most sophisticated and successful lead teacher certification and teacher evaluation systems in the country. Along with National Board Certification and the new Teacher Advancement Program, they form the core of an innovative performance pay system. Until former Superintendent Frailey removed the incentive, CPS and CFT also developed and maintained a highly successful building incentive program that rewarded teachers and staffs of any building that met performance benchmarks. The teachers union does not stand in the way of performance innovations of this sort, and in fact, the union helped to create some of these structures as long as 20 years ago. CPS teachers are more rigorously evaluated than any teachers in our state and quite possibly in the nation. CFT and CPS have demonstrated a commitment to quality teaching that few other school districts in Ohio have matched and that accounts for why Cincinnati Public outperforms other urban districts in Ohio and is considered a national model.
For the Enquirer to roll out tired arguments about teachers and unions that don’t convey the reality of Cincinnati Public Schools is sloppy journalism, reflects an uninformed opinion, and undermines our community’s knowledge and understanding of our true progress. Perhaps if the Enquirer would take the time to engage in a dialog with teachers and their union about all of these issues our community would be better served.
Tim Kraus
President,
Cincinnati Federation of Teachers
