James Carr: STRS has made a lot of choices and set a lot of priorities during the past 20 years and in general they all share one thing in common: Teachers always lose.

From James Carr

October 31, 2023

Where we end up in life often comes down to the choices we make and the priorities we set. The same holds true for organizations. STRS has made a lot of choices and set a lot of priorities during the past 20 years and in general they all share one thing in common: Teachers always lose.

We lost an annual COLA that was unequivocally guaranteed and we lost 30 and out, which was a longstanding multi-generation tradition.

What did the STRS hierarchy and it's large infrastructure of well compensated employees lose? Think Long and hard. Did they take any pay cuts or pay freezes? Aside from an in-house daycare center, did they lose any of their premium perks? Did they make any real cuts in their expenditures? Did they liquefy any of their assets to help pay for our COLA's? Did they cancel any of the multi-million dollar bonuses? Did they eliminate any of their positions or lay off any of their staff?

When we finally get a new reform-minded Board, they will need to make a very simple choice: Who is more important, us or them? For more than 2 decades, it's always been them. Always.