- Yesterday I visited my neighbourhood Coles bookstore to buy some books for relatives and for my own Christmas reading. (For me I scored Keith Richard's autobiography on sale marked down to $8 from $35 and since I had met and socialized with Keith in Barbados in 1986 I had been meaning to buy the book ever since it came out. Richards is only one month older but much older looking than me and I still chuckle over his comment at the time, "I guess I must have aged a f#ck of a lot in 30 days, mate".)
- Anyhow, when it came time to pay for my books the attractive young woman who was new to the store asked me if I wanted to contribute to the book fund. I asked about the fund and she explained that it was used by Chapters/Coles to provide new books to local schools "since they can't afford all of the books they need".
- I explained to her that I would not be contributing to this book fund because the reason schools had no money to buy books for their students was that about 82 cents of every education dollar went right into the pockets of the teachers and other staff in inflated salaries, extravagant perks and unsustainable pensions, thereby leaving no room in the budget for such trivial things as books, computers, science equipment, new desks and chairs, etc.
- I further explained that during the nine years of gross mismanagement by the departing Ontario premier DOLTon McGuilty, the teachers unions were given - until this year - everything they really wanted and that most teachers in elementary schools now made $92,000 and change and most teachers in seconardy schools made $94,000 and change.
- This intelligent young woman employed in the knowledge business was taken aback and remarked that a teacher she knew, a fellow university graduate, was only making in the low 40s in her first year as a teacher. I explained to her that her friend merely had to show up for the next ten years, stay out of jail and the asylum, take a few easy summer courses and that she would climb automatically and rapidly to the $94,000 plus bracket by the time she completed eleven years of teaching. Of course, I told her, this was the current rate, McGuilty had raised teachers' salaries by over 30% in just eight years, and so the actual rates ten years from now would be way over $100,000.
- Seeing her eyes bug out, I went on to explain that the teachers' pension plan was ridiculously extravagant and clearly unsustainable and that it was worth more than three times what the pension plan of an equivalent private sector professional would be. Under the teachers' plan, I elaborated, one could teach for 35 years and then take early retirement to collect a guaranteed pension of 70% of the average of one's best three teaching years and see this pension increase automatically each year by the cost of living. Given current life expectancies, I observed that more and more teachers wouls actually be able to collect their lavish taxpayer subsidized pensions for several years longer than they had teached. As her eyes bugged out again, I added that these exorbitant public pensions were not merely totally unfair compared with private sector norms but also had driven several US municipalities into bankruptcy with others (e.g. Detroit) to come and were also threatening to bring down California and other US states.
- Having educated my young friend from the knowledge business in the realities of Ontario teachers' deals, I closed by observing that Ontario used to be the unquestioned and runaway leader in the country in terms of educational standards and test results but that the leader almost every year for the past decade was Alberta and that Ontario was frequently found in the bottom half among the ten provinces in achievement tests. This, too, shocked the Coles bookstore employee.
- Perhaps from now on she'll get her national and provincial and local news from several papers and channels rather than just from The Toronto Red Tsar and the Collectives BSing Corporation. But probably not.
- However, at least I got the chance to explain my Scrooge-like refusal to donate to the book fund and to educate this young lady about education in Ontario and why the kids are nothing but pawns and increasingly helpless and penniless pawns in the games the monopoly public sector education unions play.
- Anyhow, when it came time to pay for my books the attractive young woman who was new to the store asked me if I wanted to contribute to the book fund. I asked about the fund and she explained that it was used by Chapters/Coles to provide new books to local schools "since they can't afford all of the books they need".
- I explained to her that I would not be contributing to this book fund because the reason schools had no money to buy books for their students was that about 82 cents of every education dollar went right into the pockets of the teachers and other staff in inflated salaries, extravagant perks and unsustainable pensions, thereby leaving no room in the budget for such trivial things as books, computers, science equipment, new desks and chairs, etc.
- I further explained that during the nine years of gross mismanagement by the departing Ontario premier DOLTon McGuilty, the teachers unions were given - until this year - everything they really wanted and that most teachers in elementary schools now made $92,000 and change and most teachers in seconardy schools made $94,000 and change.
- This intelligent young woman employed in the knowledge business was taken aback and remarked that a teacher she knew, a fellow university graduate, was only making in the low 40s in her first year as a teacher. I explained to her that her friend merely had to show up for the next ten years, stay out of jail and the asylum, take a few easy summer courses and that she would climb automatically and rapidly to the $94,000 plus bracket by the time she completed eleven years of teaching. Of course, I told her, this was the current rate, McGuilty had raised teachers' salaries by over 30% in just eight years, and so the actual rates ten years from now would be way over $100,000.
- Seeing her eyes bug out, I went on to explain that the teachers' pension plan was ridiculously extravagant and clearly unsustainable and that it was worth more than three times what the pension plan of an equivalent private sector professional would be. Under the teachers' plan, I elaborated, one could teach for 35 years and then take early retirement to collect a guaranteed pension of 70% of the average of one's best three teaching years and see this pension increase automatically each year by the cost of living. Given current life expectancies, I observed that more and more teachers wouls actually be able to collect their lavish taxpayer subsidized pensions for several years longer than they had teached. As her eyes bugged out again, I added that these exorbitant public pensions were not merely totally unfair compared with private sector norms but also had driven several US municipalities into bankruptcy with others (e.g. Detroit) to come and were also threatening to bring down California and other US states.
- Having educated my young friend from the knowledge business in the realities of Ontario teachers' deals, I closed by observing that Ontario used to be the unquestioned and runaway leader in the country in terms of educational standards and test results but that the leader almost every year for the past decade was Alberta and that Ontario was frequently found in the bottom half among the ten provinces in achievement tests. This, too, shocked the Coles bookstore employee.
- Perhaps from now on she'll get her national and provincial and local news from several papers and channels rather than just from The Toronto Red Tsar and the Collectives BSing Corporation. But probably not.
- However, at least I got the chance to explain my Scrooge-like refusal to donate to the book fund and to educate this young lady about education in Ontario and why the kids are nothing but pawns and increasingly helpless and penniless pawns in the games the monopoly public sector education unions play.
