Funding our Teachers
I come from a long line of educators. My wife is a public school teacher. My mother is a public middle school principal. My father taught and coached in public schools for 18 years. I have aunts and uncles who are teachers.
I know, first hand, several teachers who spend hundreds of their own dollars every year to purchase supplies and equipment for their classrooms. They don’t do this because they have extra money lying around, they do it because they care and want our children to have the best possible educational experience. We must do everything in our power to give them the tools, the resources, and the support they need to be able to prepare our children for a prosperous future.
Some compare our teachers to our fighting men and women. If we don’t give them the tools they need to fight the battles, how are we ever going to win the war? The same holds true of our teachers. If we don’t give them the tools, resources, and support they need to teach, we can’t expect our children to learn, prosper, and excel.
We hear a lot of talk about surplus lottery money and how it should be used to improve education. Most of the ideas that have been talked about are excellent, but very few do much to help K-12 education in our state. I have a plan that will allow some of that surplus to be set aside to help teachers get the supplies and tools they need without having to spend their own money to do it.
This plan would take a portion of the lottery surplus and set it aside in an endowment. This endowment would be under the control of the Tennessee Department of Education and would allow for direct funding of grants to teachers. These grants could be used to help fund additional training for teachers as well as buy supplies and equipment that are needed in our classrooms. Because this program would be administered at the state level and would allow teachers to apply for funding directly, it would eliminate much of the red tape at the local level where training, equipment, and supply dollars are increasingly becoming harder and harder to fit into the budget.
Sure there will be limitations on the amount of each grant, the number of grants awarded, and the type of training, equipment, and supplies that can be purchased, but it is a good starting point.
There is no better way to impact the education of our children but through their teachers.
Sir:
I am a public educator with 24+ years and have seen politicans use education as an issue and then after election lead back into the barn or use it to raise money for other issues.
Educators have been blamed for every malady in society. The education system has been described as the problem. Teachers have more demands on their personal time without compensation every year. We are to solve the problems of society and family on our personal time without compensation.
If you were to try and fill a teaching position for a science, math or english teacher you would see the end result of this assault. There aren’t sufficient applicants who are qualified. The end result is the state has contrived various avenues for those not qualified, those who never intended to be a teacher to come into the community as a stop gap in their lives.
As a single politician I don’t believe you can effect the big picture.
Lets talk politics. Have you considered the number of registered voters who are educators in your district? Most are registered and at least as motivated to vote as the NRA member. They have lost purchasing power for years and are looking for relief and a measure of respect which they can actually put in the bank, pay bills as a senior citizen who have contributed through their sacrifice to the future of our state and local communities.
A widower at home cannot put a grateful email, note or a gracious letter to the editor on the dinner table, it won’t purchase a gallon of gas and it certainly won’t pay the heating, medical or other normal expenses of life of a person on a fixed income.
I am not asking for you to go on a crusade to raise teacher salaries…experience shows it won’t happen. No what I am asking is that you bring about a regulatory change in state government. What I am asking you to do is look at and consider the LOSS of an amount of money equivalent to the social security benefits I and other educators have earned through our contributions for 30 years. That is right. When I finally reach 69, I am 49 now, the great state of tennessee will subtract the amount of social security benefits from my teacher retirement check. That s right. So I am paying for something essentially I will not receive. So you have educators in one of the lowest paid states in the country, who get a small fraction of their salary after 30 years of sacrifice and then if they survive to social security age they will have that amount subtracted from their teacher retirement check.
You must be aware of this as you have stated on your website you have many relatives including your parents who are/were educators. What are you doing about this? Do you not see the injustice in this? From a pragmatic point do you think this makes it easier to go into a profession which is all ready characterized by people who steadfastly loose purchasing power year in and year out knowing that when you reach retirement the amount of money you have earned through your contributions will be taken away through manipulation of your retirement.
What is your position on this issue? It is a major for me, I am sure a major for those I work with and your supporters when it surfaces as a topic this last few weeks before this very tight election.
Where do you stand? Will you support senior citizens who have sacrificed for their community’s future, will you support public educators (voters) benfit from their hard work, will you improve the ability to build public education as a respected profession in a fashion which is tangible and manifested in the lives of our citizens?
You will have my support if your answer is yes or as Daniele Manin said, ” if not, not”.
Craig Tilton