Strike Out

Yesterday's Denver Post shows why we won't, or at least why we shouldn't, see a teacher's strike unfold later this month as the city plays host to the Democratic National Convention. The article has many demonstrative points as to why the union has little grounds for a strike. The district's proposal would:

• Increase first-year teacher salaries more than the plan put forth by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association ($42,413 versus $38,000).
  

• Increase bonuses for teaching in hard-to-staff schools and subjects or for teaching in a school with demonstrated growth.
  

• Make 4,484 out of 4,500 teachers better off. That's worth repeating: only sixteen teachers would be no better or worse off than they are now. Imagine a print-out of every teacher's name ranked by their expected raise. With one teacher per line and 49 lines to a page, the document would be 93 pages long. Under the district plan, every teacher before page 88 would get raises larger than 5%.

The bottom of the article has a chart comparing the district and union proposals. Take much time to look at the numbers and you'll see it doesn't amount to big differences (in fact, only 3/24 categories are higher under the union plan).

Granted, the district should give up its "master teacher" idea, where principals would get to select one teacher for a one-time bonus of $2,900. That's ripe for patronage, and the union is right to oppose it. But it's not grounds for a strike.

300 Denver teachers feel the same way.