I'm a teacher; please remove 'kick me' sign

From John Curry, March 21, 2010

http://www.nj.com/gloucester/voices/index.ssf/2010/03/im_a_teacher_please_remove_kic.html

Times Op-Ed, NJ.com, March 21, 2010
By Anthony Klock

Could someone please help me remove the “Kick Me” sign from my back?

It seems to have become open season recently on public employees, particularly education workers, in the great State of New Jersey. From the governor on down through the media, I am being told that I’m overpaid, that my pension and health benefits are responsible for the ruination of society, and that I’m just being “fat” and “greedy” (I will not admit to the greedy part, however).

I have been characterized by the media as unmotivated. In other words, “I’m a low-life.”

More than 22 years ago, I graduated in the top 10 in my class from Rutgers University with a grade-point average greater than 3.8. I gained a masters’ degree and continue to develop and enhance my professional skill. I chose teaching as a career because I wanted to do something with my life that meant something. I knew that I could have gone into the private sector, and probably done quite well for myself.

My story is not unique. My work over the years with countless other teachers convinces me that the majority of the folks who enter the education field do so for the most noble of reasons, i.e., to serve young people and society for the betterment of the human condition.

To hear Gov. Chris Christie tell it, I’m basically a thief robbing the hapless citizens of New Jersey.

Through the years, I have lived with salaries far below the levels paid to other professions. Until the recent economic downturn, young people graduating from college surpassed the pay levels provided to teachers in a matter of a few months or years. We accepted this situation with a shrug and resignation, knowing in the backs of our minds that at least we’ll be contributing to a pension system that can help sustain us in our waning years.

The problem with the state’s pension system is not my fault. I have been faithfully paying my share year in and year out. The state, on the other hand has not. Beginning with Gov. Christie Whitman, my pension fund has been the funding source for various tax cuts and budget holes. As was predicted, this lack of diligence on the part of our elected officials, both Republican and Democrat, has resulted in a pension system that is supposedly collapsing.

Jon Corzine was the first governor in about a dozen years to put any money into the system. Meanwhile, the state completely missed the boat on recognizing gains in the funds as the stock market edged ever higher. But that is water under the bridge.

Those on the political right have taken to aggressively characterizing unionized labor as inherently evil and anti-American. Gov. Christie, with his “Tea Party” rabble rousing, stokes this fire of intolerance. With their corporate media cronies, they are attempting, somewhat successfully, to turn one group of middle-class folks on their way down the economic ladder against teachers, police officers, firefighters and state workers — that is, other middle-class people who are just trying to make a living as well. This is quintessential class warfare, nothing less.

Taxpayers in New Jersey aren’t suddenly going to be doing a lot better because their public servant is in the toilet next to them. I urge the citizens of the state and the country, after eight years of negligence and almost criminal incompetence at the highest levels of governance, to resist the temptation to go back there. Don’t get fooled again!

Anthony Klock is a fourth-grade teacher at the Kresson Elementary School in Voorhees Township. He resides in Port Norris, Cumberland County.