Dearborn resident Andrew Angel and his wife, Jean, sent this letter to us, the local papers, the Dearborn Board of Education, the Dearborn Federation of Teachers and the Dearborn Administrators Association.

The letter is timely and well thought out. Mr. Angel asks school leaders to put themselves in the shoes of parents and think what will happen if the board, administration and unions cannot deliver quality education to all children.

“How long do you expect parents to remain in the district if class sizes grow 5% every year? If split grade classrooms are the norm? If our children don’t have school libraries? If we cannot get in touch with administrators because we saved $8,000 on Blackberries? If Halal meals or after school sports are not available? Would you keep your children in the district? Those of us who have the option of moving or paying for private school will be gone in a few years at the most. What will our district look like then? What contract will the unions negotiate with an emergency financial manager?”

Mr. Angel says he and his wife feel that the more people who read it, the more people will think about Dearborn’s school situation and hopefully do something about it.

Mr. Angel earned an undergraduate degree at Michigan State University in public policy and a master’s in business administration. Professionally, he is involved in the logistics side of the corporate world and has held various positions dealing with process improvement, program budgeting and cost reduction.

His letter begins below.

Andrew Angel

Dear Dearborn Educators,

 

 

We are proud district parents, and we are writing to ask you to keep four things in mind as you enter the final stages of contract negotiations and the resolution of our current budget crisis:

 

1) The absolute necessity of structural change for both teachers and administration.

2) Changing the current acrimonious and destructive tone of the budget crisis.

3) Focusing on where the real root cause of our problem lies- Lansing.

4) The critical role the public schools play in keeping our city healthy.

All district employees have had to adjust their expectations downward whether they are Dearborn Federation of Teachers, Association of Dearborn School Administrators, Cabinet or Dearborn School Operating Engineers Association. Most residents of our city and state are adjusting their expectations downward as well.

According to Census data just released, the median adjusted gross income for the state of Michigan fell from $35k in 2000 to $32.6k in 2007. Those numbers are not adjusted for inflation and do not include the effect of rising cost of health care for those that still have it. From what the economic forecasters tell us, we can count on that trend continuing at least another year.

At the same time our district is also facing a change in the students it serves. In 2000, 18.7% of school age children in our district’s boundaries lived under the poverty level. In 2008, a staggering 34.3% now live below that threshold. That means a family of 5 with an annual income of less than $24,800. Please realize that many of those students are children of families who “did everything right,” invested in their education, worked hard, lived below their means, and are now unemployed with few prospects.

The reality of our budget is that Lansing will continue to decide how much money we have available for wages and benefits. You must work together to make significant changes in the promises that we make in the union contracts. Even if all of the unions agreed to a 6.3% wage cut and another step freeze, we will be in the same situation every year if you assume that the district can agree to a salary schedule and then hope to get enough money from the state. Wages and benefit gains must be contractually linked to state appropriations.

Structural change cannot just mean that we ask the teachers to take pay cuts when

 

Structural change cannot just mean that we ask the teachers to take pay cuts when times are tough and get nothing when times are good. That is not fair or good policy. Asking for pay cuts and stretching out step progressions will be a lot more palatable if we contractually promise that when funding goes up, we will put money back into compensation. There should be no doubt that our community intends to maintain attractive compensation for our teachers. We need to attract the best teaching talent we can afford.

At the same time the haircut approach to management and teachers taking the same cuts doesn’t look right to those of us who have been through even worse cuts in the private sector. You will simply have to learn to do without at least one cabinet member and take additional headcount reductions in administration. You cannot increase the ratio of managers to teachers at a time when you are asking for so much sacrifice, the voters and the unions will not stand for it.

The most frustrating thing for us personally is the destructive tone that the last two board meetings have taken. Our district is well run by any measure, financial or student outcome. Anyone who listened to the blue card comments and speakers at the November 23rd meeting would think our district is bloated and corrupt. If this tone keeps up, Lansing will have all the excuses it needs to cut funding further. Dearborn voters will also be much less inclined to vote for the hold harmless funding that keeps you better paid than most of our neighboring communities. We have a long history of supporting you, but the current vitriol is making many taxpayers think that they have been making those sacrifices for nothing.

The focus of our public meetings needs to be how to provide the best education to our children with the resources we have and how to secure more of those resources from the state. Teachers bringing legal, actionable cost saving ideas to the table will help solve our problems. So will improving our letter writing and grass roots lobbying campaigns. Calling our District’s leadership “…ineffective and ill-advised…,” as in the June issue of the DFT Green Sheet, only makes it easier for those who’s goal is to cripple public education and break unions.

The real cause of our current problem is a one state depression with ineffective and ill-advised leadership in Lansing. The state’s tax base is getting smaller while those of us still employed are ALL doing more work for the same or less money. Meanwhile almost exactly half the people in this state think that we are spending too much money in the public sector. Your job depends on convincing those people and their elected representatives that you are good stewards of their hard earned money.

Finally put yourselves in the shoes of parents and think what will happen if the board, administration and unions cannot deliver quality education to all our children. How long do you expect parents to remain in the district if class sizes grow 5% every year? If split grade classrooms are the norm? If our children don’t have school libraries? If we cannot get in touch with administrators because we saved $8,000 on Blackberries? If Halal meals or after school sports are not available? Would you keep your children in the district? Those of us who have the option of moving or paying for private school will be gone in a few years at the most. What will our district look like then? What contract will the unions negotiate with an emergency financial manager?

You have a difficult choice to make in the current contract negotiations: teachers and administrators being paid less with a difficult job ahead of them, or making cosmetic changes and watching the district and city crumble around you. The people of Dearborn are fighting for you and will continue to do so- as long as they see you acting in our best interest. The voters and parents are supporting you in every way we can; the future of our city is now in your hands.

Respectfully,

Andrew and Jean Angel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.