President's Perspective
by

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I recently came across two reminders of the general lack of respect this country has for the teaching profession and those who practice it.

An international report by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators, has some telling statistics:

• The United States is the world's biggest spender on education.

• However, K-12 teachers' salaries in the U.S. are only slightly above the OECD average.

• Nevertheless, a high school teacher in this country teaches an average of 943 hours a year, while the OECD average is 642 hours.

• The gap between the average teacher's salary in the U.S. and the average college graduate's pay in this country is the second largest among the 15 OECD countries that provided data. Only teachers in the Czech Republic fared worse.

• Elementary and secondary schools in this country devote just 57 percent of their budgets to teachers' salaries, compared with the international average of 64 percent.

Scholastic Inc. and the Council of Chief State School Officers conducted a survey of 400 teachers, including national teachers of the year from the past 50 years and state teachers of the year for the past 10 years.

Together, the respondents represent nearly 9,500 years of cumulative teaching experience. Here is part of what they had to say:

• Unsolicited, 79 percent of them said respect for the teaching profession is needed in order to retain qualified teachers. They said that respect does not now exist.

• In addition to low salaries, they said the following factors also are significant contributors to the teacher retention problem: paperwork, non-teaching responsibilities, burned-out colleagues, staff morale, changing student population, class sizes, and parental involvement and support.

• While higher salaries are important to the recruitment of quality teachers, sizeable majorities of the respondents also listed scholarships for education students, student loan forgiveness, and signing bonuses for urban and rural teachers as important strategies.

A new plan in our own state is a step in the right direction. The governor and Legislature have agreed to create a program to cover up to $3,400 a year for four years of college tuition for students who agree to teach in schools with severe teacher shortages.

Also helpful are the Shanker grants, which assist teachers seeking certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

Such special attention is welcome, but the ultimate solution must be broader and deeper. Americans must demonstrate - through their personal behavior and the policies of governments - from local school boards to Washington - an appreciation of the importance of what teachers do.

What we do, more than anyone except parents, is shape the lives of children. That's deserving of the utmost respect.

The AFL-CIO and the United Food & Commercial Workers have launched a nationwide educational campaign to make people aware of the harmful impact the huge Wal-Mart retail chain is having on working families and their communities.

Wal-Mart is destroying jobs, lowering wages, eliminating health benefits and busting unions. The labor movement is taking steps to respond to these attacks on our living and working standards. Materials distributed to labor leaders report that:

• Wal-Mart is the largest outlet for imported goods in the United States. It buys many products from countries where child labor, slave labor and human rights suppression are commonplace. When Wal-Mart replaces U.S. manufacturers' products with imports, the American companies are forced to cut jobs or, in many cases, close their doors for good.

• Wal-Mart's "Buy America" program was a phony marketing stunt to deceive customers, especially union members, into believing that Wal-Mart was selling primarily U.S.-made products.

• With its huge financial muscle, Wal-Mart forces vendors and suppliers to cut wages or risk losing the chain's significant business.

• Three existing jobs are destroyed for every two new ones at Wal-Mart. Hundreds of smaller competitors are driven out of business.

• Wal-Mart's hourly wages average $3 less than those of union supermarket employees, dragging down wages and bargaining power for every worker in every community.

• Wal-Mart fails to provide health insurance for 60 percent of its employees.

More information is available on the Internet at www.walmartwatch.org and at www.walmartyrs.org.

Incidentally, I know it's sometimes hard to tell, in our global economy, if a product is union-made or American-made.

Of course, in clothing and many other products, you can look for a union label.

Cars, trucks and vans can be tricky. Some are assembled in the U.S. by employees working under United Auto Workers contracts. Others are assembled both here and in another country.

Every new vehicle sold in the U.S. is required by law to display two labels. The "Parts Content Information" sheet, usually posted on a window, lists the location of the vehicle's "final assembly point."

The 17-character Vehicle Identification Number is stamped into a small metal plate attached to the dashboard on the driver's side. If the first character is a 1 or 4, the vehicle was assembled in the United States.

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